Barbados, April 27: Barbados loves to flaunt its cricketing greats. This is where the legends are born, says the tourism department hoarding advertising the sporting fertility of the land that has produced national treasures and the game’s greatest stars like Gary Sobers and Malcolm Marshal.

Today 22 yards of this unique West Indian Island of 430 square km will be leased out to 11 Australians and 11 Sri Lankans for roughly seven hours to grow as greats or blossom into legends.

Though it is a congress of contemporary greats here but the need to reconfirm their legendary status by making a lasting impression at the World Cup final is quite evident. Muthiah Muralitharan, whose 455 ODI wickets make him a card-holding member of cricket’s Hall of Fame, emphasised the importance of Saturday’s game. “This must be my last World Cup and if we can win, it will be the greatest moment in my life and certainly bigger than my individual records,” said the man.

With so much at stake, battle lines have already been drawn between the teams with the game’s least-talked about bitter rivalry. It seemed that mental warfare had already been launched at the captains’ pre-final photo shoot with the silverware that took place about 48 hours before the actual presentation.

Aussie captain Ricky Ponting waited for more than half an hour in his uniform in the fading light for the Lankan skipper Mahela Jayawardene, who is believed to have gone out for a game of golf. While it was made out to be a case of miscommunication, tongues were wagging that it’s an old sub-continental trick to fluster the “professional” Aussies.

When one is facing a team that is on a World Cup hat-trick and has a 28-win streak to back it, coming up with a new tactics is seen as a valid ploy. Lankans began that in the Super Eights when they kept the awkward duo Malslinga and Murali under the wraps in the game against Australia.

But after South Africa’s demolition in the semi-final, there is a consensus on the match-eve that Australia will win. That does not mean people here want them to win. Ask anyone here other than those wearing golden yellow and the answer is Sri Lanka.

The King of the Caribbean Vivian Richards said cricket’s unpredictability wouldn’t allow him to put a finger on the winner but he is sure about one thing: “They might win or they might lose the final but looking at youngsters like Michael Clarke and Shaun Tait, it is clear that Australia’s domination of world cricket is unquestionable in the coming year.”

It’s this threat and the long-term predictability connected to it that has seen most non-Aussie commoners around wanting the Lankans to win. “What’s the point of having this long-drawn event after every four years when we are already aware of the result,” said an Indian fan at the merchandise shop.