Two questions

0 Sri Lanka's captain, Mahela Jayawardene, tried to deny that his key bowlers, Muttiah Muralitharan and Chaminda Vaas, (and the injured Lasith Malinga) had been rested for tactical reasons, but nobody truly believed his protestations.02br
00When you set a trap for a beast as big, powerful and terrifying as the Australians, timing is everything. To have sprung a major surprise in a game as meaningless as this encounter 01b00had become would have been02b00 a criminal waste of their energies. 02br
00 Forget all the talk of victories building momentum and other such clichéd interpretations. Ricky Ponting's Australians are so crushingly focused that a defeat would have been 01b00like a ricochet off a rhino's hide02b00. Australia would have stored up the indignity, redirected their fury, and doubtless entered the semi-finals even more determined to crush all resistance. One look at Ponting's thousand-yard stare tells you that much. 02br
00 "To tell you the truth it doesn't worry me one little bit," he said, having long since dispensed with the platitudes in press conferences. "They obviously had some you-beaut plan going into the game, to rest a couple of the best players, but that's fine with us. We'll take a comprehensive win against Sri Lanka this close to the finals.02br
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01font00To have sprung a major surprise in a game as meaningless as this encounter had become would have been a criminal waste of their energies.02font02br
00(1) Is the above sentence grammatically correct? For me the words 'this encounter had become would have been a criminal waste of their energies' make no sense. What is '01b00had become would have been02b00' ?02br
00(2) What is the meaning of '01b00like a ricochet of a rhino hide02b00' ?02br
00 What is the speciality of the hide of rhinoceros? For me the hide of rhinoceros or any other African animal has the same quality. Hides of animals are the same. The action or rebounding doesn't have any significance whether the surface is covered by lions hide or rhinos hide. It may be rhinos hide is thicker than hides of other African animals. It doesn't make a difference for the action of rebounding.0-