Australia won the World Cup convincingly, and they deserve all the praise for doing a marvelous job, going unbeaten now for two entire World Cups! What an achievement that is! Granted, the team is almost the same, but to do it and that too without a key bowler, is fantastic.
It was always going to be an uphill climb for Sri Lanka after Australia, riding on Gilly’s masterful knock, got to 280+ in 38 overs. Speaking of a masterful knock, how amazing is it that Australia always finds a way to have one or two such brilliant performances in the big games? They are just too good.
Jayasuriya and Sangakarra gave me some hope of a Sri Lankan fightback, which there was a hint of. But I also knew that once one of them got out, the momentum would be stopped and it would be the end of the chase.
And that is exactly what happened. Sri Lanka ultimately could not keep up with the required run rate and Australia had another final wrapped up.
The question now is, who can challenge Australia? My thought is Australia A. I think Australia’s A team would be better than most, if not all, international teams. Australia/Australia A would be boring to watch for people who follow stars, but would be very exciting to watch for the true cricket lovers.
Just my thought.
Romit's Stream 
1. Yes, Australia are fantastic and deserving winners.2. If anyone could have challenged them, at least in this cup, it was SL.3. SL were let down by weather. Wish the final could have happened without the weather factor coming into play. Could it have made a difference in the final result – not sure, but you never know.4. SL truly lacked a finisher – an Andrew Symonds kind of character. I mean, yes, there is Jayasuriya or Mahela or Sangakara, but these are frontline batters. When it comes to giving it a final push, and making big late moves, there was a problem. Dilshan, Arnold are great pushers and plodders, and Vaas can hit around a bit, but not the same class as a Bevan / Symonds, or even a Dhoni. So you are right, after Sangakara / Jayasuriya were out, and considering the uphill battle, it was always going to be a tough one..
I am losing interest in the game after all this. Its turning out to be a race for #2 now. Agreed that AUS won it in style but SL didn’t deserve to go down this way.
@spm: SL does have those itsy-bitsy players, but I think the target was just too high for the itsy-bitsies to make a difference. Yes, the weather did play a part. I am not sure if Gilly would have truly unraveled in a 50-over game. If Australia had maybe 20-30 less runs, I think the game would have been much closer than it ended up being.
@rajesh: Yup – that’s why I think we need to have two divisions or maybe even three. Let’s have Aus, Aus A, SL, NZ and SA play in Div I. Eng, Pak, Ind, WI play in Div II and the rest play in Div III. Every season, one team goes from I to II and from II to III and vice versa. We’ll at least see some interesting matches …