World Cup: Shane Watson, Brad Haddin help Australia demolish Canada

Australia marched to their 34th successive win in World Cups when they beat minnows Canada by seven wickets in their penultimate Group A match at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium on Wednesday. The world champions will next meet Pakistan in Colombo on Saturday.

A comfortable win, minus any experiment, was what Ricky Ponting wanted. And that’s exactly what he got. Openers Shane Watson and Brad Haddin broke no sweat as they piled on 183 runs, a World Cup record for the highest opening partnership for Australia, to set up the chase.

However, there were a few hiccups. Between the 28th and the 29th over, Australia lost both their openers. Haddin made 88 off 84 balls, while Watson fell six runs shy of a century. At that point in time, Australia needed 26 runs to win.

Ponting was dismissed cheaply for seven. A Cameron White boundary followed by a wide delivery, bowled by Canada
pacer Henry Osinde, took Australia home.

Earlier, Canada won the toss and captain Ashish Bagai chose to bat. Many thought the match would end in quick time. However, an early onslaught by young gun Hiral Patel made Australia’s bowling look timid.

He scored an inspired half-century against the world’s fastest pacers. Canada ended up scoring 50 runs off 4.4 overs to set a new World Cup record.

Patel, who came out to open with the experienced John Davison, scripted a heroic innings — considering that he was facing Shaun Tait and Brett Lee, both bowling nothing less than 140 kmph — with a flurry of boundaries which got the afternoon crowd on their feet. The 19-year-old’s spirited quickfire 54 (45 balls) included five boundaries and three sixes.

Patel launched into Lee, striking the veteran for two boundaries. While the first one was a cut shot, the other was a superbly-timed cover drive. His first six, which came off a Tait delivery bowled at a furious pace of 148 kmph, was smashed over extra cover.

The Ahmedabad-born all-rounder’s entertaining knock saw the run-rate soar up to 10.8 at the end of five overs. But Shane Watson played an antagonist by drawing an end to Patel’s adventurous innings with a short delivery which Patel lofted straight to the third-man boundary.

Thankfully, though, his was not the only commendable knock as the minnows’ middle-order, too, showed some grit. Patel’s innings was followed by a steady 68-run third-wicket partnership between skipper Bagai (39 off 55 balls) and Zubin Surkari (34 off 69 balls) that saw Canada post 150/2 in 28.2 overs.

It was only in the 29th over that Australia bounced back. Bagai was sent back by Tait who had the Canadian skipper edging a short and wide ball to ’keeper Brad Haddin.

He then clean bowled a badly-rattled Surkari, who was struck on the thigh the previous ball.

Lee then ran through the tail, claiming four wickets for 46 runs to end Canada’s final World Cup innings at 211 in the 45th over.

Scorecard of the match