India - Sri Lanka a fitting final

It was the final organisers dreamt of before the World Cup started.

The two major host nations of the tournament have made it to the final in Mumbai.

India and Sri Lanka are both terrific outfits and thoroughly deserve their places.

The final will see some great match-ups, most notably arguably the best batsman of all-time against the best bowler.

Sachin Tendulkar and Muttiah Muralitharan have been great servants to the game and both deserve to bow out of World Cup action with a winners' medal.

Murali has a medal from 1996, but if India were to take the crown it would be the cherry on top of a considerably large cake for Sachin.

Tendulkar passed 18,000 ODI runs during the tournament

It would be fitting for him to score his 100th international century in the final, at his home ground in Mumbai, although cricket fans all over the world will pray he doesn't retire after the tournament.

He is in the form of his life and should just keep going, perhaps even making it to the next World Cup in 2015.

The Little Master is a genius in every sense of the word and will surely go down as the best batsman of all-time.

India made it to Mumbai with a superb 29-run win over neighbours Pakistan, a performance which showed their bowling attack can come good when needed.

All five of their bowlers took two wickets each, showing that while there are no superstar bowlers, the group is more than good enough to bowl teams out.

Ashish Nehra was the pick of the bowlers, taking 2-33 from his ten overs, keeping it tight by subduing the Pakistan batsmen.

Misbah-ul-Haq's 56 from 76 deliveries summed up the innings.

He was strangely quiet, unable to hit boundaries for a large part of his innings, largely due to the excellent control shown by the Indian bowlers.

Misbah is being heavily criticised in Pakistan for his slow innings, but in truth without him they would have been embarassed with an 80 or 90-run defeat.

Pakistan's fielders should be taking a much bigger portion of the blame.

Tendulkar was dropped four times on his way to 85, with the fielders showing a clear lack of concentration on the big stage.

Three of the catches were pretty simple and these sort of drops are inexcusable at this level.

One thing you can't do with the Little Master is give him chances, because he will punish you every time.

He wasn't at his brilliant best, which is why Pakistan got four clear chances to get him out, but still ended as the top run-scorer of the match and as man-of-the-match.

The great thing about him is that this innings will be forgotten about when it comes to the final, and fans can expect to see him at his imperious best again then.

Pakistan's main bowler, Umar Gul, was nowhere near his best either.

The fact he only bowled eight out of his ten overs shows just how off-form he was.

He took 0-69 from those overs, just never getting his line and length right.

He was punished to the maximum for his display, as he seemed to freeze on the biggest of stages, with an estimated one billion people watching the game worldwide.

Shahid Afridi was also wicketless as Pakistan's big performers let them down.


Riaz shows his delight after completing his five-wicket haul

 Wahab Riaz took a brilliant 5-46, but India's total of 260 always looked enough and so it proved.

Pakistan never got near the required rate and were put out of their misery when bowled out for 231.

As for Sri Lanka's five-wicket win over New Zealand, it was the Kiwis' batting which let them down.

They collapsed from 192-4 to 217 all out, and seem to have no chance when Brendon McCullum and Ross Taylor don't fire.

Sri Lanka also suffered a similar collapse, from 160-1 to 185-5, but edged over the line.

They have perhaps the best all-round team of anybody in the world, with their batting and bowling line-ups striking fear into any opposition.

Lasith Malinga, Ajantha Mendis and Muttiah Muralitharan all offer something totally different and out of the ordinary with the ball, while the likes of Tillakaratne Dilshan, Upul Tharanga, Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene are all among the best in the world.

They are a truly stunning outfit and that is what makes this final so fascinating.

India's home advantage will make them favourites, but Sri Lanka should not be written off as they are an excellent side.

So much will rest on the toss and whether Sri Lanka can make early in-roads to silence the crowd.

Two legends will go head-to-head in Mumbai and both deserve to be on the winning side.

Murali will retire after the World Cup and will be a great loss to cricket, while Tendulkar has not publicly stated any desire to retire in the immediate future.

All cricket fans should hope he carries on regardless of the result as there is nothing better than Sachin in full flow.

He has done wonders to the image of cricket and deserves all the plaudits currently coming his way.

The final is too close to call and it really will be about who has luck on their side on the day.

There can only be one winner, and that will be cricket.