Australia and New Zealand lead way in return to World Cup power game

In a thrilling tournament of sixes and bouncers, captains Michael Clarke and Brendon McCullum have realised that venom is often more desirable than accuracy

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This has been a World Cup of pace, power and aggression. At the Auckland semi-final Clive Lloyd, who presented the man of the match award to Grant Elliott, must have looked on and marvelled at how the game had changed since he first held the trophy aloft at Lord’s in 1975.

Yet in a way this tournament was a reversion to those early years. Back in 1975 and 1979 there was pace and power in abundance as the mighty West Indies side prevailed. In the first final Lloyd hit 102 from 85 balls; in the second Collis King, à la Glenn Maxwell, cracked 86 from 66 balls as Viv Richards looked on admiringly. On both occasions Lloyd went on to unleash his battery of fast bowlers, which, in those two campaigns, included Roberts, Boyce, Julien, Holder, Holding, Garner and Croft.

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source Sport | The Guardian http://ift.tt/1xJuHh3