No wonder the Australians won

The season in the Indian sub-continent and the southern hemisphere starts in late September and generally finishes in late March. For the three teams playing in the tri-series in Australia, the season began in contrasting fashion and ended up similarly too. India, after a disastrous tour to England, recovered their poise somewhat by crushing the same opponents in a one-day series at home and then easily beat the West Indies in a Test and one-day series at home. Sri Lanka too started well with matches in the UAE against Pakistan and won a Test for the first time in South Africa before narrowly losing the one-day series to the Proteas. Australia had a nightmarish Test against the South Africans, when they were dismissed for 47 and lost after taking a first innings lead, and then when they returned home they lost to neighbours New Zealand. However, back home on familiar territory, the Australians were back to their best and demolished India 4-0 in the Test series and then capped the season by hanging in there in the third final despite a low total to win that series too. The Australians winning the third final was typical of how teams react differently. The hosts, seeing that they didn\'t have enough runs on the board, raised the level of their fielding and didn\'t allow easy runs at the start of the Sri Lankan chase. Having just chased down a target of 271 in the previous match on the same pitch and losing only two wickets in the process, the Lankans went into the dressing room thinking that getting 232 was going to be a piece of cake. Batsman after batsman looked to play shots when all that was needed was a sensible approach. Brett Lee was the one who made the initial breakthroughs and his dismissal of Kumar Sangakkara was so nicely set up and so simple in its subtlety. The Lankans then did not help their cause by getting out to the plodding medium pace of Clint McKay. The Australians played every match as if it was the final, while the sub-continent teams played as if it was their first. No wonder the Australians won.