2007 Cricket World Cup

Result

Player of the Match (Final)

Adam Gilchrist, Australia

Tournament format

16 teams, the largest field the tournament has ever had, in four groups of four, with the top two from each group advancing to a "Super Eight" round-robin stage before semi-finals and the final. The first, and to date only, Cricket World Cup hosted in the Caribbean, staged across the West Indies.

Full match archive

Every match of the 2007 tournament, not just the final — all 50 group-stage and semi-final matches, plus the final round-robin standings. See all 50 matches →

Final: match context

Australia won their third consecutive World Cup title in 2007 -- a feat still unmatched in the men's tournament -- beating Sri Lanka in a rain-shortened, farcically mismanaged final at Kensington Oval in Barbados that ended up finishing in near-total darkness. Rain reduced the final to 38 overs per side before a ball was even bowled. Batting first, Australia were carried by wicketkeeper Adam Gilchrist's astonishing 149 off just 104 balls, an innings built on 13 fours and 8 sixes that Gilchrist later revealed was aided by a squash ball concealed inside his batting glove to improve his bottom-hand grip -- a detail that only added to the innings' legend once it became public knowledge. Matthew Hayden (38) and captain Ricky Ponting (37) provided support, and Australia posted a formidable 281 for 4. Sri Lanka's target, revised by the Duckworth-Lewis method to 269 from 36 overs, got a promising start through Sanath Jayasuriya (63) and Kumar Sangakkara (54), the pair adding 116 together, but the chase fell away in the second half of the innings and Sri Lanka finished on 215 for 8, officially 53 runs short. The finish, however, is what the match is actually remembered for. Bad light stopped play at the end of the 33rd over with Sri Lanka well behind the target; because more than 20 overs had already been bowled, the match was, under the playing regulations, already a fully decided contest at that point. Match officials nonetheless believed three further overs were required to be completed the following day, and after Sri Lankan captain Mahela Jayawardene chose to continue rather than simply accept the result, the remaining overs were played out in near-total darkness, with Australia's part-time spinners bowling underarm-paced deliveries that neither batsmen nor fielders could properly see -- a scene broadcast worldwide and widely mocked as an embarrassment for the sport. Match referee Jeff Crowe later described it as a "communication breakdown," the officials involved apologised, and all of them were subsequently stood down from that year's World Twenty20 as a consequence. The tournament was also overshadowed by tragedy: Pakistan head coach Bob Woolmer was found dead in his hotel room on 18 March 2007, the day after Pakistan's shock group-stage elimination at the hands of Ireland, triggering an initial murder investigation by Jamaican police before an eventual ruling attributed his death to natural causes. Both India and Pakistan, pre-tournament favourites, were eliminated in the group stage -- a result that provoked major criticism of the sprawling format from cricket boards, India's in particular, and contributed directly to the tournament reverting to a smaller, simpler structure from 2011 onward. Australia's win extended their unbeaten World Cup run to 29 consecutive matches, a streak of dominance across three tournaments that stands as one of the great achievements in the sport's history.

Sources

• Wikipedia: 2007 Cricket World Cup
• Wikipedia: 2007 Cricket World Cup final
• ESPNcricinfo