Whom did rain rescue?

Well leading cricket websites suggest that rain spoils West Indies' fortune when the 3rd one day international was called off due to rain at Sydney. Is it that rain played a spoilsport when West Indies were above to lose the third one day match also against Australia? West Indies, in the past two one dayers have not even managed to cross the 200 run mark and suffered humiliating defeats like never before. It is a pity that West Indies are playing Australia, when in case their caliber is taken into consideration have to play some non test playing nation or atleast Bangladesh.

Australia no doubt put up a modest of totals when they were restricted to just 225 on board by the West Indies' bowlers (which may be the case, no guarantee). The story could also be that the Australian batsmen might have taken the West Indian bowlers lightly and as a result paid a partly price by scoring the lowest total in the tournament against the West Indies. It was only Ravi Rampaul who could be the highlight of the day when he returned with figures of 4/61 from his quota of 10 overs. The other side of the coin also suggesting that Ravi went in for over 6.0 runs an over compared to the overall run rate of just above 4.0 an over.

On the other hand, it would be worth highlighting the bowling performance of Dwayne Smith who returned with figures of 3/45 from 10 overs at a run rate of 4.5 an over. May be that his experience also counted to his performance to some extent. As batsmen kept on collapsing on one side the incoming batsmen were more cautious and were found playing their innings more seriously compared to their batting counterparts. It was the tail end batsman in Ryan Harris who hit the lone six of the Australian innings and returned with a strike rate of 233 which was more than 2 runs a ball.

And when it comes to the West Indies batting, it was fascinating to see the entire 6 runs that was on the board towards the West Indies side was scored by extras alone. West Indies, moreover were set a target of 151 runs from 24 overs which was more than 6 runs an over as compared to the run rate of just above 4 an over had the match not been interrupted. West Indies had faced Australia some three years back in the then VB series which was a tri series involving Pakistan as the third team. West Indies had reduced Australia to 41/5 in the league match which was abandoned due to rain. But, this time rain ruined Australia's chances of whitewashing the West Indies.