by Shuvait Koul
On Wednesday, emotions were running high both in India and Pakistan. Ultimately one team had to win and at the end of the day it was the steely nerves of Dhoni and his boys that triumphed over an otherwise dismal looking Pakistan thus allowing the whole of India to plunge into a mode of ecstasy and jubilation.
However, one thing that stood out in Mohali was the spirit in which both teams played the game. An India-Pakistan encounter is always a high voltage affair and this being the World Cup semi-final made the stakes even higher.
But, it was heartening to see the way players from both the sides managed to maintain their composure in front of the vociferous and electrifying Mohali crowd.
Right from the times the two arch rivals started playing cricket against each other; there hasn’t been a single occasion when the players have not been put under enormous pressure by the media and the expectations of the people across the border.
Credit should be given to the skippers of both the teams for managing things on field the way they did.
It is also worth mentioning that Afridi has been a great ambassador of Pakistan cricket and has led his young team by example.
Even though India-Pakistan matches do not invite the same kind of antics and histrionics as before but the on-field bonhomie between the cricketers promises to be a great feat for the spirit of the game.
Thursday, 31 March 2011
Painting the World Blue
By Parvathy Gopalakrishnan
Picture this: From the outer space, a tiny potion of the earth sparkles. Darkness pierced by bright fireworks. Ground zero: Mohali. Din, crackers, and a sea of blue homo sapiens overpowering a small cluster of men in green. Two blank looking Prime Ministers. 11 men in blue in a huddle, walking with their heads high. A few men in green trying to suppress their emotions, in an attempt to uphold the spirit of the game.
Bikers throughout the country zoomed on their streets waving the tricolour. Non-cricket enthusiasts were glued to the idiot box. Cricket enthusiasts tried to alt-tab between work and passion. And then came the ultimate outburst of emotions.
Rewind. It was toss time, and “the men who mattered” were there. The coin was spun, and it fell in our favour. Two men walked on to the field, that prompted a huge roar from the crowd. While swashbuckling Sehwag destroyed and departed, Ton-dulkar was playing an anchoring role. Gambhir (27) managed to stick around for a while, but once he took the long walk back to the pavilion, the wickets started to tumble.
Kohli and Yuvraj played a blink-and-miss innings, while Dhoni and Raina displayed batting with a consolidation motive. The man who stole the show, however, was Wahab Riaz, kissing the turf post his maiden five-wicket haul. While Hafeez and Misbah tried their best, it was clear that it was a wild goose chase. And as the last men standing fell, it was time for reverie. People who jeered at Nehra every time he made an appearance on the screen now know who had the last laugh.
For everyone who thinks that the match was fixed, wait for the finals when our friends from the emerald isles will be butchered. The moment of the match, or rather after it, was when Shahid Afridi thanked and appreciated the hospitality of the Indians! Respect.
Picture this: From the outer space, a tiny potion of the earth sparkles. Darkness pierced by bright fireworks. Ground zero: Mohali. Din, crackers, and a sea of blue homo sapiens overpowering a small cluster of men in green. Two blank looking Prime Ministers. 11 men in blue in a huddle, walking with their heads high. A few men in green trying to suppress their emotions, in an attempt to uphold the spirit of the game.
Bikers throughout the country zoomed on their streets waving the tricolour. Non-cricket enthusiasts were glued to the idiot box. Cricket enthusiasts tried to alt-tab between work and passion. And then came the ultimate outburst of emotions.
Rewind. It was toss time, and “the men who mattered” were there. The coin was spun, and it fell in our favour. Two men walked on to the field, that prompted a huge roar from the crowd. While swashbuckling Sehwag destroyed and departed, Ton-dulkar was playing an anchoring role. Gambhir (27) managed to stick around for a while, but once he took the long walk back to the pavilion, the wickets started to tumble.
Kohli and Yuvraj played a blink-and-miss innings, while Dhoni and Raina displayed batting with a consolidation motive. The man who stole the show, however, was Wahab Riaz, kissing the turf post his maiden five-wicket haul. While Hafeez and Misbah tried their best, it was clear that it was a wild goose chase. And as the last men standing fell, it was time for reverie. People who jeered at Nehra every time he made an appearance on the screen now know who had the last laugh.
For everyone who thinks that the match was fixed, wait for the finals when our friends from the emerald isles will be butchered. The moment of the match, or rather after it, was when Shahid Afridi thanked and appreciated the hospitality of the Indians! Respect.
Pakistan succumb to their silly cricket and the Indian self-belief
By Shuvait Koul
Amidst the massive fan frenzy in Mohali, it was the cool and composed head of Dhoni and his men that prevailed in the semi-final against Pakistan. Disciplined bowling coupled with some silly cricket by the Pakistanis saw India home.
One would have thought that after Sehwag gave a rollicking start to the innings, India was looking pretty to reach a score of above three hundred. But Wahab Riaz and Saeed Ajmal managed to pull things back after stage India was in a commanding position at 141 for three in 25 overs. However, on a day when Sachin was dropped four times, something that has never happened in the master’s career before, he went on to play a life-saving knock 85 and after that it was always going to a tough ask for Pakistan to come back into the game.
To add insult to injury, Raina’s cameo of 36 allowed India to post a 260 on the board which was a defendable total on a wicket that was slow and the ball was stopping a bit.
Pakistan went off to a cautious but solid start but once Hafeez got out, Indian bowlers managed to seize the initiative. On a big stage like this, Pakistan needed its senior pros in Younis Khan and Misbah to come to the party but both played a bizarre innings to add to the woes of their team and nor could the swashbuckling Razzak and skipper Afridi bring any hope for a victory with their batting.
The turning point of the match however was the dismissal of the dangerous looking Umar Akmal by the turbanator. Ashish Nehra’s brilliant spell in the death overs put India further in the driver’s seat thus vindicating Dhoni’s stand of choosing Nehra over Ashwin.
Afridi’s decision of not enforcing the batting powerplay around the 40th over turned out to be a huge tactical error in the sense that it was way too late when they eventually had to take it in the 45th over and the required rate had already crept up to 12 an over with just two wickets in hand.
All in all, it was a forgetful day for Paksitan after having done immensely well in the tournament till that juncture. They must be ruing the fact that had they not dropped Sachin four times and performed better in the ground fielding, the result could have been
different.
Amidst the massive fan frenzy in Mohali, it was the cool and composed head of Dhoni and his men that prevailed in the semi-final against Pakistan. Disciplined bowling coupled with some silly cricket by the Pakistanis saw India home.
One would have thought that after Sehwag gave a rollicking start to the innings, India was looking pretty to reach a score of above three hundred. But Wahab Riaz and Saeed Ajmal managed to pull things back after stage India was in a commanding position at 141 for three in 25 overs. However, on a day when Sachin was dropped four times, something that has never happened in the master’s career before, he went on to play a life-saving knock 85 and after that it was always going to a tough ask for Pakistan to come back into the game.
To add insult to injury, Raina’s cameo of 36 allowed India to post a 260 on the board which was a defendable total on a wicket that was slow and the ball was stopping a bit.
Pakistan went off to a cautious but solid start but once Hafeez got out, Indian bowlers managed to seize the initiative. On a big stage like this, Pakistan needed its senior pros in Younis Khan and Misbah to come to the party but both played a bizarre innings to add to the woes of their team and nor could the swashbuckling Razzak and skipper Afridi bring any hope for a victory with their batting.
The turning point of the match however was the dismissal of the dangerous looking Umar Akmal by the turbanator. Ashish Nehra’s brilliant spell in the death overs put India further in the driver’s seat thus vindicating Dhoni’s stand of choosing Nehra over Ashwin.
Afridi’s decision of not enforcing the batting powerplay around the 40th over turned out to be a huge tactical error in the sense that it was way too late when they eventually had to take it in the 45th over and the required rate had already crept up to 12 an over with just two wickets in hand.
All in all, it was a forgetful day for Paksitan after having done immensely well in the tournament till that juncture. They must be ruing the fact that had they not dropped Sachin four times and performed better in the ground fielding, the result could have been
different.
Tuesday, 29 March 2011
Symbolism In the Name of Cricket?
by Shuvait Koul
The script couldn’t have been written better for the biggest encounter of 2011 Cricket World cup- an India-Pakistan clash in the semis. However, more than the eyeball to eyeball confrontation that will unleash between Dhoni and Afridi’s men in Mohali tomorrow, it is the diplomacy surrounding this game that has garnered more attention.
The question though, that looms large, is that whether the hype that this game has encompassed will serve as an ice-breaker in the strained ties between the two neighbours, post the Mumbai terror attacks. Symbolically, Pakistani Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani’s visit is touted to be an important step in the context of Indo-Pak relations, yet one wonders whether the kind of hype that has been given to it makes sense or not.
It is also noteworthy that there must already be a lot of butterflies in the stomachs of players from both the sides and to allow diplomatic subjects to overshadow cricket comes in as a concept hard to buy.
Cricket has always been a tantalizing platform for political stalwarts across the LoC to create an amicable atmosphere for a dialogue - Zia ul-Haq’s visit to India in 1987 for an ODI match and Musharraf’s visit in 2005 serving as some high-profile instances. But it’s hard to shy away from the fact that diplomatic overtones given to Indo-Pak cricket battles have always had a meagre life-span.
Cricket does establish bridges between the people across the border but how much it does to the establishment of peace and harmony between the arch rivals is highly debatable. One can only wish that the spirit of the game doesn’t become a casualty owing to such symbolisms.
The script couldn’t have been written better for the biggest encounter of 2011 Cricket World cup- an India-Pakistan clash in the semis. However, more than the eyeball to eyeball confrontation that will unleash between Dhoni and Afridi’s men in Mohali tomorrow, it is the diplomacy surrounding this game that has garnered more attention.
The question though, that looms large, is that whether the hype that this game has encompassed will serve as an ice-breaker in the strained ties between the two neighbours, post the Mumbai terror attacks. Symbolically, Pakistani Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani’s visit is touted to be an important step in the context of Indo-Pak relations, yet one wonders whether the kind of hype that has been given to it makes sense or not.
It is also noteworthy that there must already be a lot of butterflies in the stomachs of players from both the sides and to allow diplomatic subjects to overshadow cricket comes in as a concept hard to buy.
Cricket has always been a tantalizing platform for political stalwarts across the LoC to create an amicable atmosphere for a dialogue - Zia ul-Haq’s visit to India in 1987 for an ODI match and Musharraf’s visit in 2005 serving as some high-profile instances. But it’s hard to shy away from the fact that diplomatic overtones given to Indo-Pak cricket battles have always had a meagre life-span.
Cricket does establish bridges between the people across the border but how much it does to the establishment of peace and harmony between the arch rivals is highly debatable. One can only wish that the spirit of the game doesn’t become a casualty owing to such symbolisms.
Go India, Chak de Fatte!!
by Parvathy Gopalakrishnan
The World Cup might be reaching its fag end, but this end, just like some of the last puffs of a cigarette, gives the maximum high!
Two out of the three nations hosting the mother of all cricketing events have got their tickets to the semis. An emphatic crowd, full house at Mohali, people playing birds - perching on tree-tops to catch the action live, chants of Hoo Haa India, an electric atmosphere…everything and more that a cricket fan could have bargained for.
While radio stations, TV channels, newspapers, and phones are abuzz with what will be the match like, mango people at pan shops and chai tapirs are also “as-busy-as-a-bee” discussing “ab kya hoga”, twisting their faces to match up with the discussion with an extremely serious look!! After all, this is India
Some students, unfortunately, have exams and dreadful papers the very next day. Most students are going to be the victims of pre-planned illness- the regular stomach-ache, head-ache, and blah-blah ache! Shopkeepers are having a merry time selling team India
Let the trumpets bellow, drums beat. Bring on the colours, cheer out loud; the stage is set for the epic clash. It’s the blues vs the greens. Choose your colour right, and enjoy the cricketing fiesta!!
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