Barbados: Retiring Australia coach John Buchanan said it was his nation's destiny to be at the cutting edge of cricket after they'd won a third straight World Cup title.
Australia's victory over Sri Lanka by 53 runs in a rain-affected match here at Kensington Oval meant his players gave Buchanan, 54, a winning send-off in his last game as coach after eight years in charge.
Buchanan, whose first-class playing career extended to just seven matches with Queensland in the late 1970s, took charge of Australia shortly after their 1999 World Cup triumph.
Although, supervising a gifted side, featuring 2007 World Cup man of the tournament Glenn McGrath, who retired as a player after Saturday's game, and Adam Gilchrist, whose 149 was the highest individual score in a World Cup final, Buchanan has been credited with extending the team's horizons.
Buchanan, set to concentrate on what had been a motivational speaking sideline, had challenged the rest of the world to match Australia's standards after they beat India in the 2003 World Cup final in Johannesburg.
But while now reluctant to pass on tips to other nations, Buchanan was clear where the sporting future of Australia, whose Institute of Sport in Canberra has been a template for many countries, lay.
"I think it's our role always to lead change, to lead new ideas to be right at the cutting edge of cricket or of sport in fact.
"Then it's up to other countries to try to chase us," Buchanan, formerly coach of Queensland and English county Middlesex, added.
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