India through to the finals

What a feeling it is. To be in the world cup finals beating Pakistan for the 5th time in the world cup. Its just difficult to digest. Goosebumps in the  tummy. Butterflies flew all around, screaming and abusing was a bit low key thanks to being in the foren country.

The tension to see in the finals after 8 long years and this time go one step further to lift the cup of glory in homeland was unpalpable. All superstitions were followed. Unmoved at times when things went right for India and when runs were leaked, when wickets didnt fall. Reeling Munna and Bhajji when they leaked runs. Blowing off Kamran Akamal when he showed his stupid poker face on screen during keeping and batting was all done.

Facebooking and watching cricket has been the trend this world cup. Update the status message on FB, update stats on FB, update number crunching there and put on some superstitions like Cmonnnnnnnnnnnnnn and to see a wicket tumble moments after that was all fun. Dont have the luxury to watch on TV on any channel, so have to rely on  the ISP and host of live streaming sites to watch the action LIVE.

It all happened on a day remarkable for Indian cricket, what a day it has been. Reaching 3rd world cup final, 2nd in 8 years and almost with the same group as it was in 2003.  Sachin, Sehwag, Yuvraj, Zaheer, Harbhajan, Nehra are the survivors of that match India lost in Wanderers to rampaging Ponting and co. This time its a step to go further. Win the world cup in Mumbai, the hometown of Sachin Tendulkar, country’s greatest sports icon and perhaps the best ever batsmen to play cricket in all times.

Thanks to Pakistan to turn up in India despite the hot and cold diplomatic relations, thanks to them for making the match living all the hype it had before this game even began. Thanks for them to provide us yet another opportunity to savior this victory. Beating Australia, Pakistan in the route to finals is amazing. The contests with this 2 countries have always been intense, thrilling and top quality. And Pakistan did go out in a proud fashion, forget what Misbah did in final overs, they have done their nation proud with almost flawless and mostly controversy less performance in the world cup. None expected them to come this far given what happened in past year in their build up to the world cup, so Afridi must be a proud man given how his men have delivered.

Sachin Tendulkar has played all 5 victorious games against Pakistan in World cups and he has been man of the match in 3 of them. He has scored 54, 31, 45, 98 and 85 in this 5 games. He has played with great Kapil Dev to Azhar to Jadeja, Mongia, Venkatesh Prasad and the great trio of Dravid, Ganguly and Kumble. Not to forget Javagal Srinath.

India won its first semi final at home. Previously it had lost its 2 semi finals, both chasing in 1987 to England and pretty controversially in 1996 to SL. This time India defended a 260 and won. 

The biggest turning point of the game was the dismissal of Gambhir in the 20th over which led to a mini-collapse in the 25th – 30 th over and a score of 350 became 260. Sehwag in his super assault on Umar Gul had set India on another huge total, but once he was out and the rest just went in the shell. Gambhir has been erractic this tournament. he has thrown away his wicket in almost every game. Something not expected from man of his stature.

Tendulkar was cratchy, scratchy and whatever, but his 85 set India to cross 250 and that proved to be the difference in the end.  MSD is excelling in captaincy, but his batting is concern.

What was too heartening to see was only 5 bowlers were used and everybody took 2 wkts each. Zahee was little bit off color, but he was made up by super Nehra and surprisingly Munaf.  Ashvin;s dropping was a debatable issue, but I still feel he will be a key man in the final and he should replace Munaf in the XI. Nehra got his rythm back in the 2nd spell and at helped him in the super final spell when he just gave few and got Riaz.

It was a day when the bowling and fielding excelled yet again and the batting was iffy.

In the end Younis and Misbah combined together to stall the stanis chase and its likely that this guys wont be part of the LoI set up in the future.  Misbah is test captain, but then who knows what happen in Pak cricket. The others — Shafiq, Hafeez and UKumal didnt quite turnup to play long innings that could have won their team this game. Yet they came this far and thats applaudable.

For a change there was no sledging this time and there was no “war cry” on the ground at least.  Expecting Pak to react to this loss graciously back their home and not call for the people’s head who featured in this tournament. They’ve got some very good positives in form of Riaz, Shafiq etc and once they are given chances they could come up as well finished product.

But for now lets savior the superb Indian victory and rally behind them to trounce the cheats of the world to avenge the painful defeats of 2007 and 1996. Lets burn the Lanka this time in Mumbai 8 months before the Dusshera festival.

Fact about West Indies

Before writing off England against the most crucial game of Group B later today one must remember the fact that West Indies has not beaten a serious Test opposition in an ODI since June 2009.  Plus how they play on turning track (if ) of Chennai would be an observation for MSD and team to decide on the team composition for the Sunday’s game. 

Sangakara is afraid to play in Mumbai

We were surprised when we learned that we will have to travel to Mumbai to play that game. I thought hosts play at home,” he said. “Playing the New Zealand game is beyond our control. You can’t change that now. That’s gone now and we need to be up for the task.”

The man is hell scared to play in India, especially in Mumbai cos its here in this city his team was streamrolled by Sehwag in 2009 Test series. 

But how come he didnt know the itinerary before hand the tourney began? Is he scared to play in India? Well of course, he wont have the slow, low turners on the Wankhede track and of course he  wont have Russell Arnold singing constant praise of every Sri Lankan player in the team. 

Listening to Russell Arnold is even worse than listening to the trio of Athers, Hussein and Beefy or Arun Lal, Sivramkrishnan etc. 

Just a FYI to captain articulate, India is also one of the host countries of this world cup and they played their first game in Mirpur, BD. We didnt hear any such weird comments from Mahendra Singh Dhoni.

They were lucky to have escaped with a no result against Australia. They now play against Zimbabwe who would be crushed and then they play against New Zealand in Mumbai when they would be crushed. 

Lankans have rode all the luck in the previous world cups  to have been called the most consistent team in the world cups post 1996. They got 2 forfeits and one default in 1996 and then they won the tournament. Ditto here. 3 easy wins against Canada, Kenya and Zimbabwe. Defeat against Pakistan, no result against Australia and a possible defeat against NZ in Mumbai is making Sangakara make such weird statements.

THooo

Why India should win the world cup and no other country should

I support bloody men in blue. Men in blue which hail from the land of corruption, land of Sonia Gandhi and MMS. Its a big thing that I support bloody men in blue despite all their faults, their falliability to the mistakes on the field, their larger than life stature on the field, the likes of Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag and of course MS Dhoni, the man from Jharkhand.

These men are good enough to give any team run of their money, be it from the down south Sri Lanka or neighbour Pakistan or even down under Australia.

We do have falliables like Freesanth bholaram sakharam DK but we also have the likes of GOD, his look alikes, Dhoni, Kohli, Sardar and of course Appaam Chu***nandan shiromani Sreesanth. But when combined this bloody men can give any team in the world a good pasting, a good defeat by the virtue of the cruel bat. These men inflict wounds, scars on the soul, long lasting impact good enough to decode people of their mystery, This men prompt the likes of Kumar Fungasakara to ask his bowlers bowl deliberate no balls or even prompt the likes of Graeme Swann or Ravi Bopara to speak high like “bring on the bloody Indians” or “silence the Indian crowd”.

Yeah we are bloody Indians, corrupt, mismanaged and of course pampered. We dont  have the best of infrastructure in the world, we may be corrupt and regionalistic. We might bother about Gandhis, Kalmadis, Rajas, Karunas and other Mamtas, but we bloody care about our cricket. We want revenge, we want the bloody world cup to be in India. Snatch it from bloody Aussies and keep it in India. Not to win it for an individual but for the spirit of cricket, for that unknown cricket fan that spends  invaluable time of his life watching his idols. Idols in infalliable guys like Sehwag, Tendulkar, Dhoni, Yuvraj and of course Harbhajan.

We want the cup to be ours. Not of the bloody Lankans who want to win for a chuck. We want to win it for a man who has played cricket with all purity, divine intervention and bloody cold blooded humility and honesty for 21 years, who did not ask any rule to be bent for his brand of game or who did not break any tv set in his life or did not ask any umpire to give the opposition players out on any illegal catch. Or somebody who talked big and delivered less or nothing. We want to win for men who keep low profile and do the talking on the field when it matters, We want to win the cup for bloody top Test playing nation, we want to now capture the topmost ODI crown too.

Yup, we bloody Indians want to win the world cup. No matter where we are, in India or USA or troubled waters of Mid east, we want to win the damn world cup. That would quench out thirst for a world title. None deserves to win the title as bloody Indians as much we have waited for 28 years  to get the coveted trophy to where it deserves, bcos we play our cricket clean, we dont have chuckers, we dont have Pricks, we dont have slingers, we dont have spot fixers, we dont have cheaters, we dont have womanizers, we dont have idiots, we have cricket playing men whom we adore more than the national icons. We want the cup to be called bloody world champions Indians.

Yeah the cup belongs to India and only India.

Team Preview : India

Finally its time to preview the team that is best suited to win th world cup. India. Did you hear the drum beats? India. India.

The team that plays the best brand of cricket in all formats, is very successful and has got attractive, aggressive and awesome players who excel in stroke play and positive brand of cricket. Its all about adopting to the situations, the team has players that can set a match alight to the fire and thrill the people.

You have Virender Sehwag, you have Gautam Gambhir, MS Dhoni, Yusuf Pathan and then above all you have Sachin Tendulkar.  No sight is better in One day cricket when Sachin and Sehwag bat together.  I bet if anybody can find better sight than that. No ugly swipes, no Dilscopps, all delight, all improvisation and something that gives you a cricketing orgasm….

You’ve got Kohli, Dhoni, Yuvraj to come in the middle order, may be at this point Yuvraj and MS are not in the best of the form. Yuvraj in full flow would be a dangerous proposition for any team, something Stuart Broad would testify.

India has the power, ability, hope and fanbase to go all the distance to lift the World Cup trophy on April 2 in Wankhede stadium when everybody in the world would watch.

Accounting for India’s 1st warmup game

India has kick started its world cup campaign with a comfortable win over defending champions in a warm up game. Holds not that good significance but there were few positives out of this game coming out leading up to the tournament opener on next Saturday.

Batting did not click, the usual suspects with the bat continued to fail, the seamers in their whatever quota of overs they got, did not impress. But the biggest positive of this game was the way Chawla bowled. Sure, the aussies set panic for a modest target and they could have won had they got patience.

But Chawla got them to play those foolish shots and thus earn a very good chance to play ahead of Ashwin in the finall 11.

Ashwin as usual was at his restrictive best not looking for wickets. Thats what he is good for. Restrictive line and length, good for blocking runs. But dude we need wickets too in the ODIs to win games, not just stop runs. We dont need defensive mindset spinners. There are lot of part timers — Pathan, Sehwag, Yuvraj and Raina who do that precisely.

Another baffling question is why the hell did not Tendulkar play in the warm up game? Is he going to go in the world cup on the back of just 4 ODIs in a  year? Has he recovered fully? We got no clue from what MS had to say in the post match talk. Tendulkar has to be in imperious form along side Sehwag to provide fiery starts which India has not got in 2010 thanks to rotating opening pairs and injuries.

The next game is against Kiwis and thats when India would need to finalise the starting XI against BD in the revenge game on 19th.

India’s main men!!!

India’s chances in the World Cup would depend on following men besides form of Sachin Tendulkar.

1. Virender Sehwag

2. Yuvraj Singh

3. Yusuf Pathan

4. MS Dhoni

Viru and Sach would no doubt the most explosive opening pair in the tournament.  How Yuvraj Singh shapes up and how he plays would also define India’s chances. 

He has not been in his best in last few months, but this is the biggest platform for setting his critics right. It does not get bigger than this. If he plays a pivotal role in the World cup win for India, he would be forgiven for all his antics off the field and of course for his swelling belly..

Yusuf Pathan has come of age after that career turning century against Kiwis and he did an encore of that in the final ODI in Centurion, but how he fares in the premier ODI tournament would depend on how he plays and in what situation he plays. He has shown right temparament all this while in the latest lease of life for him. Its good that he has his priorities and ambitions set out at right place to play for India inspite of IPL money. Only thing he needs to do is to keep patience and let his bat do the rest. If he is at the crease, the runs shall come automatically. 

MSD is other bat who would be crucial to India’s chances. He has not been in best of ODI form off late. He didnt figure in Kiwi series and was off color in SA. But he has been the best finisher for India after Dravid’s decline in 2007.

This 4 together would define how far India goes and we expect them not to lose a single game after QF.

India’s games are on:

19th Feb at Mirpur vs BD

27th Feb at …… vs Eng

6th Mar at  Bangalore vs Ireland

9th Mar at Delhi vs Holland

12th Mar at Nagpur vs SA

20th Mar at Chennai vs WI.

Hopefully by the game on 12th India would have already qualified for the Quarter finals.

Post South Africa series

A 1-1 is not a fair result in the end of the series which was well fought and dominated by India after the centurion drubbing. India lost the plot on day 4 when they allowed SA to race to 341 from 6/130. At that scoreline with an out of form Boucher and injured Kallis on the crease, it could have been a easy victory if any one of them was dislodged earlier. But India failed to cease the initiative.

Th captaincy became defensive, except for Zaheer and Harbhajan there were no intent from the other bowlers. One of them was even fined for his now usual (mis)behavior.  What is the use of such a bowler who is unable to provide the breakthroughs when needed and has his own set of rituals to follow even if the over rate is slow. I raised that point in one of the posts below and there it was, India was fined for slow over rate. Kallis was one of the factor behind the slow over rate when he frequently asked for physio during his not out innings.

A target of 340 was always going to be tough on day 5 wicket. And if India had any outside chances to win the test they were dependent on Sehwagasque start,alas he too switched off. he went to defensive mode and scored just 11 off 40 bals before getting out.

If Sehwag could have got going his trademark style who knows the Saffers would have been under some pressure.

Gambhir once again showed his class in 2nd innings, he not only played with an injured left arm, but also stuck out in the middle depriving the SA bowlers of any chances to flutter India.  He came good in this series in 2 tests he played. A 80 in last innings followed by patient, fighting 90 in this one. A century would have been better, but this team is not about the milestones, but the fighting spirits.

India lost horribly in the first test, came back great in 2nd to dismiss SA for 131 and almost won the 3rd test. It was a replica of 2007 when India messed up their batting in 2nd innings and this time it was the bowling.

The biggest question after this series would be Dravid. What next ? Is he going to wait till May to go to West Indies and England thereafter or would he call quits. There is no competitive cricket to follow for him except IPL 4 to help gain some batting form. But the question is how long will he prolong himself after a rut which has gripped him for a year now.

The question is how long would Sachin Tendulkar carry on. Would he retire after the World Cup? Or quit ODIs and continue tests. I think that would be the most possible scenario that he would give up ODIs to prolong his test career by a year or 2. This year is very important for India considering the tests it has to play in 4 continents or countries — India, West Indies, England and Australia. We would be anticipating nothing less than wins in WI and Australia and an epic series to follow in England. And if India faces a mass exodus in its 3 best batsmen then does it have the replacements ready for the remaining greats of Indian great middle order of 2000s?

A lot of this would clarify in the coming months.

2011 WishList

Wishlist for 2011:

This is a big year for Indian cricket given the fact that it plays World Cup in home turf a month and half from now. Plus it tours away countries where it has a realistic chances to win series. In 2 of those countries India has already won the last series it played and in the 3rd one, its the best chance to win a series first time after deprived of it by ugly Steve Bucknor.

India tours England, West Indies and Australia this year. First time away tours in such a bulk after 2007.

The progress India has made in last few years which led to its incarnation being the top test team of the world would be tested this year and i hope it comes out with flying  colors. Dravid wont be around after SA series for sure and that would mean Che Pujara / M Vijay would move to the 3 and again Yuvraj would compete with Raina for 6.

India would play the world cup in its turf where it would be the team best suited to go all the distance as it would have a knowledge of the conditions and pitches all over the grounds its going to play. And it would be heartbreaking if a team like Sri Lanka wins the world cup in India. This is the best chance to avenge that 1996 defeat in Eden Gardens.  A world cup win in Mumbai and hopefully a Sachin 100 would be dream come true. But more than Sachin 100, its going to be a world cup win thats going to be more wishful.

The contest of the year wont be SL vs Aus or SL vs ?? but India vs England in England. That would be the best chance for England to try and win a series against India in 14 years. And if that happens then may be then Gough and Vuaghan would get some credit to their bullcrap!!

But first things first, a Capetown victory would be the first one on the agenda and start of the best things thats destined to come to Indian cricket.

Raina under pressure

Suresh Raina has now failed for 4 consecutive games in Tests and he has seemed to given away his advantage of having a cracking start to his Test career in Sangaland. 

He must remember that few more failures and he would be out of the reckoning soon. There are too many contenders for the # 6 spot in the Test side with Yuvraj, Pujara and the awesome Kohli.

Even though he has a big fan in MSD still he would need to deliver in the upcoming Durban Test, else this SA tour would be a replica of 2006 tour when he failed and he was out of the World Cup squad and went to a hibernation of 1 year untill CB Series of 2008.

He better perform!!!