Melbourne, March 29 (IANS): In a tournament hugely dominated by the batsmen, two bowlers walked away with the most coveted prizes after the final at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) as Australia beat New Zealand by seven wickets to lift the World Cup a record fifth time here on Sunday.
Australian bowling all-rounder James Faulkner was adjudged the Man-of-the-Final for his figures of 3/36 from nine overs. He picked up the key New Zealand wickets of the dangerous Ross Taylor (40), the hard-hitting Corey Anderson (0) and Grant Elliot (83) who was New Zealand's lone inspiration with the bat.
On the other hand, Mitchell Starc was given the Player-of-the Tournament trophy for his sensational bowling performances throughout the event. The twenty-five-year-old pacer bagged 22 wickets at an astonishing average of 10.2 and an enviable economy rate of 3.5.
The twin awards on the tournament-climactic day, however, doesn't depict the actual picture of the tourney where batsmen ruled the roost. There were two individual double hundreds, six individual 150 plus scores and 35 hundreds, while the bowlers were whacked for almost ten sixes per match.
Both Starc and Faulkner came up with exceptional shows, but cricketing experts have called for a change in rules as also lessening the width of the edge of the bat, saying the run feast was creating boredom among fans.
Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni had said earlier this week that too many boundaries can be boring sometimes and called for some changes in One-Day International (ODI) cricket.
"Let's not make 50-over game like a T20 game because I feel even a lot of sixes and a lot of fours also make it very boring," Dhoni had said in the post-match media meet after his team went down to Australia by 95 runs in the World Cup semi-final.
"I feel the rules are slightly harsh. Maybe slightly more harsh on the spinners who like to deceive the batsmen with their flight, like to challenge them."
"Now you have these all batsmen playing sweeps, reverse sweeps and all these different shots, and they have an advantage," he had said.