The script has been written: Sachin Tendulkar will score his 100th
international century on his home ground in Mumbai to clinch the World Cup for
India.

Would you bet against that happening?

After all, the Little Master ensured that he did not reach the historic landmark against Pakistan, albeit after having to give his wicket away on four occasions before he was finally dismissed thanks to plenty of fielding ineptitude.

As the old saying goes, 'no side that drops the great Tendulkar four times deserves to win a cricket match' - and Pakistan's display in the field did not warrant a place in

If any match in the history of cricket was guaranteed not to involve any spot-fixing or other associated funny business, it was this one.

No bookie or player would be brazen enough to try it on in the full glare of the cricket world. This match, more than any other, was definitely clean.

Which makes it rather a shame that, every time something unusual happened during England's five-wicket win at Sophia Gardens, it was impossible not to wonder if anything underhand was going on.

And that is the real curse of this spot-fixing scandal. Not that three carefully-placed no-balls would affect the

Many people spend their 26th birthday running
through racks of shots and playing the role of the tipsy fool on the dance
floor; Peter Siddle, however, spent his running through England and playing the
tourists like the proverbial fiddle.

The snarling Victorian became the 11th
Australian to take a Test match hat-trick, and ended with galling (insert
'ripping' if you are of a Baggy Green persuasion) figures of six for 54 which effectively
broke the back of England's paltry first-innings offering.

After Andrew Strauss's third-ball 'epic
fail', it was up to Jonathan Trott to 'go to the trenches'

After England's historic 3-1 Ashes series victory was sealed in Sydney, we take a look at the key statistics of the players involved from either side.

Australia fielded 17 players in a miserable and chaotic series, while the tourists only required 13 as Andrew Strauss's side clinched the first England win Down Under for 24 years.

A packed and vociferous crowd will witness the fiercest rivalry in cricket tomorrow as India host Pakistan at the Punjab Cricket Association Stadium in Mohali, Chandigarh, and it will be unlike anything seen anywhere else in the world.

England's Ashes rivalry with Australia is, without doubt, the most historic and established, but it has nothing of the intensity, ferocity, magnitude and sheer cultural significance of India-Pakistan.

Tomorrow's clash is set to be frankly monstrous as both sides chase a place in the World Cup final in the subcontinent, and a great deal of national identity,

Major
tournaments and a tag of being 'amongst the favourites' has not been a happy union for South Africa in recent years.

But the
marriage of Imran Tahir to his (Cow Corner presumes) lovely wife could be the
very thing which helps South Africa banish those ghosts.

If it had
been England who were on the receiving end of the '22 runs from one ball' incident of 1992, we'd still be grumbling about it now.

The South
Africans bore that on their shoulders, and then were saddled with the additional World Cup heartache
of losing the 1999 semi-final to Australia from a position of needing one run
from

Shaun Tait, a Test great? It may sound like an absurd statement given that the Radox bath-loving, Elastoplast-sponsored paceman had already nearly hung up his boots and shoulder brace three times by the age of 25, but his potential has always been staggering.

The South Australian, nicknamed 'The Sloon', will go down as one of cricket's great enigmas, one of this generation's lost stars: a cricketer with incredible talent and dazzling attributes, yet without the career stats to back up his ability.

Tait is now 28-years-old, and only now has he found his market: bowling three-over maximum

Ask any Australian, and they'll tell you that winning the World Cup is easy (well, before yesterday, at least).

"Aw, look mate..." they'll start, before recalling their three consecutive triumphs and reminding you of England's spectacular failures.

From the 2007 ensemble who left us the lingering memory of Fredalo, to the 2003 side which were high on principle and low on qualifying for the knockout stage, and the 1999 team who crashed out of their own party in dismal fashion at the first opportunity.

This year, things are different. The field's wide open and the World Cup holders are already