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.
Showing posts with label Ind pak match. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ind pak match. Show all posts
Thursday, 31 March 2011
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.
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