Aussies were not going
to lose: Gilchrist
Australia were steaming to a comfortable victory and were under no threat from a classic Brian Lara innings in Wednesday's abandoned one-day match in Sydney, Adam Gilchrist said.
Australia won by 28 runs under the Duckworth/Lewis system of deciding rain-affected matches when rain abandoned play with the West Indies, chasing 278 for victory, on 211 for eight in the 43rd over.
Lara's unbeaten 116 from 106 balls had given the West Indies a chance of a sensational victory.
Gilchrist praised Lara's fine knock but claimed Australia -- with 5.2 overs left from pace spearheads Glenn McGrath and Nathan Bracken -- still held all the aces.
"Brian played a tremendous innings, there's no denying that, it was terrific for the crowd --- to witness that," the stand-in Australian captain said.
"But I must say I always felt like we were in the driving seat, they had their backs against the wall.
"I didn't really feel under too much pressure there at any stage where I really needed to pull some sort of magic out of my hat and get a breakthrough.
"I felt like we were always pretty much in control."
The Duckworth/Lewis system, devised by a pair of English academics, takes wickets lost into account when determining the revised score needed for a team to win in a washout.
Losing eight wickets meant the Windies needed to be 240 runs when play ended after 42.4 overs of their innings.
Gilchrist, replacing injured Steve Waugh as skipper, said he knew nothing of the mechanics of the system except "the bottom line" -- the revised target for the team batting second with a rain intervention.
"It would be nice if there was something where everyone totally understood it and knew how the total was derived from the formula," he said.
"But it seems the Duckworth/Lewis system, from talking to teams and players over the few years it's been in, is one of the fairer ways of deciding a match.
"No-one's been able to come up with the perfect solution yet so I guess we've got to keep using the one that seems most fair, and keep trialing other ones in other competitions, grade competitions or whatever it may be."
Australia plays Zimbabwe in the next match of the triangular series at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Sunday.
Mail Cricket Editor
