When World No.1 And World No.2 Battled

He surly is the destiny’s child, impossible actually is nothing for him, that’s why with each passing match he is taking team India to new heights. With the kind of success he has achieved, the man with Midas touch is surly going to be considered as one of the greatest leader India has ever got. The man in talking is once again the caption of team India –Mahendra Singh Dhoni.

When a team scores 359 runs they are considered to be winner by themselves and everyone, because chances of chasing such a huge target in ODI’s are generally theoretical , with lots of  if’s . But this Indian team believes in making things happen. I always wonder what  Mahendra Singh Dhoni actually says to his team members that they always perform for him  and for the first time I had heard from the man himself."I just told them in the innings break that we have done this in past when we had made  414 runs and Sri Lanka had made some 412-413 runs  .Just go their and don’t look at the scoreboard and try to play the shots in right shape”. Easily said than done !! But these things count when a team actually achieve it.

16 October 2013 was a historic day in world cricket when world no.1 and world no.2 team battled to produce a historic event for the ODI history. Australia scored 359/5 thanks to the awful  bowling performance by Indians and in reply India scored 362/1 thanks to the awe-inspiring batting performance of Indians. India chased down the target in 43.3 overs which turned out to be the second highest chase in the history of game and could have been the highest ever, had Australia scored 435. Only on very few occasions such scores had been chased by any team and unfortunately Australia was always at the receiving end in the top four ones.

It was raining fours and sixes at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium, Jaipur last night. If score was rare then their has to be some rare feast achieved by the teams and players. This match was not an exception  ,their was a fastest hundred scored by any Indian involved in it along with the 176 runs opening partnership against Australia by India. Top five Australian batsmen scored 50 and equaled the previous record on the pitch which surly proved to be a graveyard for bowlers with only 6 wicket fell in the match and 721 runs were scored. These achievement of last night surly proves that history is yet to be written and records are made to be broken.  

The Articulation Which Produces Best Cricket

Cricket is a game not a battle, but if we articulate all the cricketing actions it do look like so .There are many cricket rivalry which were created on paper and hence created our interest for the matches .Think of an India Vs Pakistan match, now think of the endless motivational media reports on TV and news papers , now think of those Goosebumps and moments which had skipped your so many heart beats ,yes this is actually how the on field rivalry starts in Cricket.

The best example of this is the battle of all battles ,the greatest test rivalry -Ashes . Yes that ashes in which England and Australia play , and these rivals were playing with each other for five years before the idea of the Ashes was born ! In 1882 when Australia had beaten England at Ovals for the first time and the reaction (mock obituary)of Reginald Shirley Brooks in The Sporting Times which had added a pride element in it the word Ashes came into picture..

The mock obituary read “ In affectionate remembrance of English Cricket which died at The Oval,29^th August,1882.Deeply lamented by a large circle of sorrowing friends and acquaintances. R.I.P N.B. The body will be cremated and the Ashes taken by Australia.” This had actually given weight to the series and had actually made people of Australia believed that they had achieved some thing big. That’s why when in the subsequent series when England under the captaincy of Lord Darnley had beaten Australia ,he was presented with an urn containing the Ashes of a bail used in the third Test by a group of Melbourne women .

Cricket have different meaning depending on what hype media has created about the series and it do have an impact on spectators and players .History suggest that it is this rivalry only which inspires player to give their best and create history and this is what people like to see on the ground .Many new records  get created in such series and it is your performance in these series only which  can change your entire career and will give you a place in the memorable moments of Cricketing history.      

No More Tail-Enders

India whitewashed Australia 4-0  ,followed with which many interesting conclusion were drawn after digging numbers like- it was Australia’s 7th loss in a row in India and their worst performance in an away country , its India’s biggest Test series victory(4-0 beat Aus 2013, 3-0 beat Eng 1993, 3-0 beat SL 1994)  , MS Dhoni became first Test captain to win a Test series 4-0 despite losing all the tosses , it was only the 2nd time India beat Australia in three days in a Test . The only other instance was at Mumbai in Nov 2004 , only once before Australia has lost a Test series 4-0 (It was against Ali Bacher's South Africans in 1970) , , India's target at Chennai in 2001 against Australia was also 155 runs. India won by 2 wickets , Peter Siddle became first batsman in Test cricket to score 50+ in each innings at number nine !!!

Statistics hardly matters in cricket so are your past performances , what matters is how you  perform on that particular day .The top-order may have been brittle and the middle-order ready to collapse, but the sting of this Australian team was firmly in the tail .In all the eight innings Australia has managed to stitch together inspiring partnerships for eight , ninth and tenth wicket. The inability of the Indian bowlers to mop up the tail has been as startling as its newly discovered confidence to deal with the cream of this Australian batting line-up.

At different points of time , different teams have done this and if they do it pretty well , you have to give respect to them and not say they are tail-enders .There are players who come after number seven-the  traditional threshold of being considered as a batsman and still averages over 30 , you cant call them tail-enders.  In fact there are no more tail-enders in international cricket who come in , slog and get out , the players now believes in putting a price on their wicket. The modern day cricket demand bowlers who can contribute through bat as well .Thats why we are having more cliffhangers now a days which goes down to the wire hence making the game more unpredictable .

Indeed Cricket is a batsman’s game !!!

   

Australia Vs South Africa – Matches Of Unique Records

Johannesburg March 2006 , Australia post down the highest total (434) of one day internationals  and  the chokers of international cricket successfully chased down the target with one ball to spare and made a record total of 438 ,record made and broken on the same day.

Cape Town November 2011 , Australia were struggling at 21-9 that too in a Test match and hits its 109 years low total with 47 all out .

These are some fascinating yet contradicting records which we can expect when two best sides in the world plays with each other .And continuing the recent year trends we have another  match going on at Adelaide which had created many records on the day one of the Test match . Australia inched closed to their highest one day score of 494 after 102 years and finished with 482-5 on day one . Apart from that their were series of records on first day which happened for the first time in international cricket viz Australia became the first team with three individual 100 plus scores on the opening day of the Test match , Michael Clarke became the first player to score four Test double centuries in a calendar year ,Clarke also became the first number 5 batsman to score a double century on day one of a Test . It was also Michael Clarke 21st Test 100 in 140 innings (at 31years-234days) unlike the other heroic performance a few days back by another captain Alastair Cook who also made his 21st Test 100 in 148 innings (at 27years-229days)  and they both had made their debut in India ! Coincidence !Well we have another batsman to complete his 100 tests on 23rd November ,the marauding opener of Indian team Virender Sehwag , record every where !

Well such records are made whenever pitch behave different from its usual nature .But watching someone to bat with Clarke’s dominance is a rarity , dealing quality fast bowlers with utter disdain and at the same time also considered as the one of the best players of spin , has to be special .

Still four days left in the test match with  South Africa still to bat we can expect many more records in the coming days with match swinging in either way or one way as both teams are full of world class top ranked bowlers and batsmen. Oh so much of unpredictability and still we say Test cricket is not interesting !

Sometimes Winning Is Not Enough

Victories of all shades ranging from the diffident to the emphatic  ,interspersed by a shattering loss against Australia and than a tricky exit from the tournament ,that’s what defines the India’s journey in the ICC world Twenty 20 . And as usual in the process of doing postmortem of India’s defeat like a true Indian cricket team fan we came to some very logical conclusions like - Australia conspired to lose to put India and South Africa out , South Africa has spoiled the Indian party ,they should have lost it under 121(because we so hate it when other countries don't play according to India's needs).

In a format which equalizes both sides sometimes only winning is not enough . If we talk about this world T20 in particular where the four teams of semi finals are not decided until the last match is been played we should learn a important fact that the difference between almost winning and actually winning a match is that the former doesn’t count . So if we now accept the reality and analyze what actually went wrong than we will find India itself is responsible for their such unfortunate exit .Starting from the India Vs England match where both team have already qualified for the super eights and considering the fact that spin has always been a problem for Poms we should not have played with three spinners against Australia .Playing five bowlers is so unlikely Dhoni’s way ,that huge loss against Australia have actually made the India’s task tougher ,considering the group in which India is playing . How can you expect a team to win a match against team like Australia without playing with their regular opener , if Sehwag was injured or what ever may be the reason for not including him in the side than India should have a back up opener .Blaming  rain of just five minutes is not the way to justify your lose when you actually have not putted enough runs on the board .

Many are satisfied with the Indian performance because India have won the match which actually mattered i.e. the one against arch rival Pakistan . Winning in that match with eighteen balls left instead of the required nineteen to have a better run rate than Pakistan have only complicated the equation. The next match became must win for every team, and the situation was very much in Pakistan favor .History says that Pakistan plays exceptionally well when they are in a do or die situation ,than how can you expect them to flunk when the situation is so much in their strength zone .At least I was pretty assured that Pakistan was going to win that match .

With that Pakistan win ,South Africa had nothing to lose but India have many things to achieve .The things started getting wrong from the Toss itself , as Indian have to bat first they have to put a big total on the board and that extra pressure have left India short of fifteen to twenty runs and eventually India could only post a modest target of 153 which Dhoni is so good at defending .But India had to win it by 32 and since we had digged the  hole ourselves, we need to find a way to claw out of it .India started off brilliantly but since the result was not in our favor Dhoni’s decision to save his best bowlers and delaying Ashwin’s spell cost India the semi final berth .

India has been in such situation many times under Dhoni’s captaincy and nothing less than win is expected from our  team ,but as only two teams from a group can advance to the semi finals we have accept the truth  and to take positives from it and must admit that Indian bowlers, contrary to the expectations, did exceptionally well , but it’s the batting which let the team down.