Aussie media lauds team as best ever

Australia’s media on Tuesday hailed their World Cup-winning team as the best side ever to have played limited-overs cricket. “Best Ever” said the back-page headline in Melbourne’s Herald Sun newspaper, while national daily The Australian newspaper’s main sports headline said simply: “The Unbeatables.”

“Is this Australian side the best one-day cricket team ever to take the field?” the Herald Sun newspaper asked in its editorial. “Their World Cup clean sweep ensured the game’s longest winning streak (17 matches), making it hard to dispute.” Former Australia batsman Dean Jones, rated by Wisden as the fourth best batman in one-day history, told the Herald Sun: “It was the most compelling, destructive cricket performance I have ever seen.”

Comparisons were drawn with Don Bradman’s “Invincibles” Australia side, which toured England in 1948 and won the Test series 4-0 in what is still regarded as one of Australia’s greatest performances in any sport.

Story continues below this ad

“Ricky Ponting’s all-conquering team has even seemed invincible, to use a word that resonates in the Australian cricketing psyche,” the Sydney Morning Herald said.

Darren Lehmann, who hit the winning runs in the 1999 final and took the winning catch on Sunday, said the Aussies had taken a step back in time to the free-spirited days of the Ian Chappell-led side in the 1970s. “We would win a game and go out and have a beer. We took it back to the 1970s and 1980s in that respect,” he said in the Herald Sun.