India wins Guwahati game

India won the first ODI in Guwahati by comfortable 40 runs. This margin could have been even bigger one should the 9th wkt partnership of 67 runs had been shortened. Yet next game in Jaipur, the Mallu lad Sreesanth would be on hattrick and if he gets wicket on first ball he would become 2nd bowler to take a ODI hatrrick for India. Kapil being the other one.

India had lot of positives from the game in all the aspects:

• Gambhir looked comfortable batting until he chased a wide delivery that got him out.
• Virat Kohli is soon maturing to a wonderful ODI batsman, with his 2nd consecutive century he is a certainity for the World Cup. He has gone past the likes of Vijay, Rohit Sharma and of course Sir Ravinder Jadeja in the utility to the team.
• R Ashvin was a very good bowler on this day and should he get more chances and he encashes them he would be good wicket taking bowler for India in ODIs.
• All bowlers bowled well in tandem with even Yuvraj Singh coming good with his off spin.

Nehra’s ommission from the original squad was baffling and still its not sure if PK returns who would go out. I’d reckon it should be Munaf, as he has not been in the frame all this while and Nehra is India’s most successful ODI bowler since June 2009 with 55 wickets in 37 games.

Kiwis now have lost 7 games on the trot in the subcontinental conditions and at this point of time Vettori/Taylor would be a huge fan of Mr Speakit Sangakara who every day gives us a new gyan on the cricketology and latest from his repository is “WC 2011 is going to be most  competitive and there is no clear favorite”. So if going by this form, Kiwis are not the favorites for the world cup in subcontinent, but since this would be most open and competitive World Cup, the Kiwis can still surprise anybody. I would be happy if they surprise Sri Lanka every time they play.