Archive for India
My proudest moment, Tendulkar
Posted by: | CommentsAfter India’s World Cup triumph fulfilled one of the Little Master’s few remaining ambitions, emotional Sachin Tendulkar thanked his team-mates.
India chased down a target of 275 with 10 balls to spare against Sri Lanka in Tendulkar’s home city of Mumbai.The 37-year-old, appearing at his sixth World Cup, contributed just 18 to the cause before Lasith Malinga ended his hopes of marking the occasion with his 100th international hundred.
But Gautam Gambhir (97) and Mahendra Singh Dhoni (91no) saw India home in the penultimate over.
Asked about India’s increased self-belief since Gary Kirsten took over as coach, Tendulkar added: “It has always been there but even more so in the last couple of years when we have been extremely consistent and it is a great honour to be part of this team.
Nehra might miss the final world cup match
Posted by: | CommentsA question mark is put over Ashish Nehra’s selection for the final against Sri Lanka on Saturday as he has fractured the middle finger on his right hand. Ranjib Biswal, the Indian team manager, confirmed the development but said the team would only take a call on Friday about whether or not he could play. Nehra has a fractured finger, which was revealed from the scans taken this morning. But Gautam Gambhir, who went off the field during Pakistan’s innings in the semi-final having felt some pain and did not return, is expected to be fit for the final. Biswal said they would clarify the position on Gambhir tomorrow.
Nehra picked up the injury while attempting a catch against Pakistan. He was fielding at deep midwicket when he attempted to pick up a pull by Shahid Afridi against Yuvraj Singh. Nehra, not known so much for his deftness in the field, charged forward to pick the ball that was dying on him at the very last minute. Replays confirmed the ball had bounced in front of him but Nehra’s attempt drew applause from his team-mates as well as the fullhouse. Unfortunately, Nehra was grimacing in pain and immediately had his finger taped.
Since the injury was on his non-bowling hand, Nehra was able to get through three more overs in the match. However, there are worries he will not be able to field.
It was a bit of a surprise to see Nehra in the first XI during the semi-final, given that the man he replaced, R Ashwin, had been impressive in the two matches he had played in the tournament. Despite Nehra’s performance of 2 for 33, and Munaf Patel’s 2 for 40, India captain MS Dhoni said after the game that India had misjudged the pitch and should have played another spinner.
Ashwin may well have returned in place of either Nehra or Munaf for the final in any case, and will almost definitely be in the side if Nehra does not recover. The only other pace option India have is Sreesanth, who has been left on the sidelines since the first game of the tournament.
Nehra had missed the first two matches of the tournament with a sore back and was brought in for the group-stage game against Netherlands. Against South Africa in Nagpur, he went for 65 runs in 8.4 overs, 16 off which were scored in the last over of the game, consigning India to defeat. He was then left out for India’s next two games, before returning for the semi-final.
India made their way to the biggest big match
Posted by: | CommentsAs the Indian bowlers showed an amazing performance in bowling and got their country a victory with the biggest rival in cricket world. India made their world cup dream one more step closer to the triumph as they won the semi final over Pakistan at Mohali. It’s now the host battle. The world cup final will be played between Srilanka and India.
In the end, India’s 260 for 9 was enough as their bowlers did a fine job, but had Pakistan helped themselves, the target could have been so much more gettable. Sachin Tendulkar was dropped four times in his 85, MS Dhoni was put down once and while Wahab Riaz was extremely impressive in collecting five wickets, Umar Gul had one of his most forgettable days, wilting under the pressure of a World Cup semi-final.
By contrast, India’s display in the field was much more professional, and that was the difference in a match that lived up to the extreme pre-match hype. The decision to leave R Ashwin out to make room for Ashish Nehra was an odd choice on a pitch offering plenty of spin, but Nehra and his bowling colleagues built the pressure and gave Pakistan’s batsmen little to attack after they made a promising start and reached 70 for 1.
The Indians didn’t give away an extra until the 37th over of the innings, and the way they put together strings of dot balls and tight overs was key to their success. Munaf Patel picked up two victims and Yuvraj Singh made up for his golden duck with a pair of wickets, but the most important breakthrough came when Harbhajan Singh bowled Umar Akmal for 29.
It was enough, but India’s batsmen will need to improve if they want to lift the trophy on Saturday. For now, they can dream of their first World Cup in 28 years.
India meets Pakistan in the SEMIS
Posted by: | CommentsSometimes, they say, one four can change things around. That cliché came alive today, in the final ball of the 39th over, with India needing 72 from 67 deliveries, when Yuvraj spanked Shaun Tait for a stunning four over backward point. It oozed of skill, impishness and dare under fire. Until then, in the preceding few overs, India choked and spluttered badly to almost hand the game to Australia. That Yuvraj hit over point sensationally turned the game on its head.
An awe-inspiring Ricky Ponting dazzled and Sachin Tendulkar hit a delightful fifty but it was the imperious Yuvraj Singh who stole the show to lead India to an exciting semi-final encounter against Pakistan. On a dry pitch, aiding turn, India couldn’t remove a wonderfully solid Ponting, but found a way around him to hold Australia to a competitive 260. Tendulkar set the base and the middle order threatened to choke, but Yuvraj played a blinder to charge India to a famous win.
The next over proved to be the game-breaker as Brett Lee was looted for 14 runs: Suresh Raina played the most assured pull of his life to crash the first delivery to the boundary and Yuvraj carved the final delivery over point, but it was a shot in between that really reflected the enthralling contest. It was a screaming yorker from Lee, from around the stumps, and Yuvraj crouched, opened the bat-face and stabbed it through to the third man boundary. Lee looked stunned, and you felt that was the moment when India affected the jail break.
Quarter will be played as MINI FINAL
Posted by: | CommentsIndia have played Australia in 15 one-days at home in the last five years, and Australia have won nine of those matches. Both teams have lost a game each in the group stages of this World Cup, and though India will be hoping home advantage can buoy them to a victory, Nielsen warned it could also be a hindrance to them. Nielsen said he remember the pressure Australia faced playing the World Cup at home in 1992, and things would be no different for India. Playing at home ground is a huge factor for India. There’s some pressure there and Australia can start the game well and maybe quieten the crowd that will play on the mind of the Indian team.
Tim Nielsen, Australia’s coach, has said his team were hoping to meet India in the final of the World Cup, and would be treating their quarter-final against the tournament co-hosts in Ahmedabad on Thursday as a “mini-grand final”. He said that Australia is aware the atmosphere at Motera would be electric, and the players were looking forward to that.
The attention on India will also help lessen the hype that usually surrounds any Australian team at a World Cup. This time around, the defending champions are not the out-and-out favourites to win the tournament, and the end of their unbeaten World Cup streak, against Pakistan in Colombo, has further lessened the aura of the side. Nielsen looks at that as an advantage, saying all the pressure was on India.
India moves as second to the quarter
Posted by: | CommentsThe way West Indies and India collapsed, conspiracy theorists will waste no time in suggesting that both teams wanted to avoid Australia in the quarter-final. As it turned out, West Indies finished fourth in Group B, thus getting Group A leaders Pakistan in Dhaka. And India renews hostilities with Australia in Ahmedabad.
The game might have ended in a whimper, but it began explosively. As they successfully did in the last two World Twenty20s, West Indies came out with bouncers for India. Inside the first 11 overs, two deliveries bounced over the keeper’s head for byes, two batsmen got out to deliveries dug in short, one was dropped off another short delivery, but Benn went for 21 off his three overs to ease the pressure. To make matters worse Darren Sammy dropped Yuvraj twice, chances not easy but not impossible, at 9 and 13.
West Indies, they have done for the second match in a row they had a chase all wrapped up but some desperate inspiration from Zaheer Khan and Harbhajan Singh and some mindless cricket from the batsmen who followed Devon Smith ensured that West Indies remained without a win over a Test side other than Bangladesh since June 2009. With Smith playing as well as he has ever played, West Indies almost mocked India for the first 27 overs, getting up to 146 for 2 without a care in the world. Then came a maiden by Harbhajan and a wicked Zaheer slower ball to remove Smith, and West Indies lost the last eight wickets for 34.
That collapse outdid India’s own – 7 for 50 – that had threatened to undo Yuvraj Singh’s century on a track whose bounce West Indies and Ravi Rampaul exploited, but not to the fullest. Rampaul, the hero of West Indies’ last win against a major side, took his first five-for in ODIs on his World Cup debut to hurt the start, the middle and the end of the Indian innings. However, West Indies’ insistence on opening the bowling with Sulieman Benn despite the helpful track, and the obvious plan of trying to bounce India out meant they couldn’t capitalise on a first over that claimed Sachin Tendulkar. Then there was Yuvraj, with his maiden World Cup century, fighting dehydration, vomiting on the field, and then coming back to take two wickets.
Smith speechless after win and Dhoni hints at seaming error in final over
Posted by: | CommentsThe Proteas elated captain, Graeme Smith watched from the balcony as Robin Peterson’s final-over heroics saw South Africa to victory at the expense of the co-hosts’ unbeaten record. He says South Africa will use their confidence-boosting triumph over India as a marker for the rest of their tournament.
Peterson’s 18 not out saw South Africa successfully chase down India’s total of 296 all out with two balls to spare after half-centuries from Hashim Amla (61), Jacques Kallis (69) and AB de Villiers (52) gave them hope.
Smith admitted the victory – which lifts them into third in Group B – was a fitting fillip after throwing away what looked like an easy win in their previous match against England.
India moves to the top position
Posted by: | CommentsChasing 190, India raced out of the blocks with Sachin Tendulkar becoming the first man to reach 2000 World Cup runs with a hat-trick of boundaries in the fifth over, and Virender Sehwag backing that with three more fours in the sixth. The flurry of hitting had the Delhi crowd buzzing, and when Sehwag carved Seelaar over extra cover for six and then dabbed him to third man for four, India were 69/0 in the eighth over and Netherlands looked set for a hiding.
India defeated Netherlands on a slow-moving track at the Feroz Shah Kotla with nearly 14 overs to spare though the margin of victory couldn’t mask a lacklustre performance from the home side. The Indian bowling was just about tidy against some dour Netherlands batting, and their bunch of big hitters came unstuck for a while against the left-arm spin of Pieter Seelaar in a low-intensity match.
Seelaar, though, ensured it wasn’t another embarrassingly one-sided match, like many of those involving the Associates in this tournament. He had Sehwag slicing to point, and then dismissed both Tendulkar and the promoted power-hitter Yusuf Pathan in the 10th over to rein in India.
Virat Kohli didn’t last too long before being bowled by Peter Borren, but Gautam Gambhir and Yuvraj Singh steadied the innings as Netherlands’ limited bowling struggled to make more inroads. They added 40 trouble-free runs before Gambhir was bowled round his legs. It was left to Yuvraj and MS Dhoni, India’s finishers over the past few years, to calmly steer India to victory with a 61-run stand, with Yuvraj getting his third half-century in a row.
Ireland lost with honour
Posted by: | CommentsThe stronghold of the Chinnaswamy remains secure for India, but the men in green made the men in blue fight hard for victory and will leave Bangalore with their honour intact. A gritty 113-run stand between captain William Porterfield and Niall O’Brien, Ireland’s highest for the third wicket, leant a respectable shine to the total and Ireland’s never-say-die attitude was in full evidence in the field as they made India fight for every run before a bombardment of Yusuf Pathan boundaries sealed the battle.
Outgunned on almost every front, Ireland nevertheless kept themselves in the game until the very end. Porterfield and the elder O’Brien defied the opposition and the baying crowd to haul their side out of a perilous 9 for 2, and Trent Johnston’s two early wickets in his opening spell breathed life into the innings – especially after his scene-stealing ‘chicken dance’ celebration at Virender Sehwag’s dismissal. Throughout, Ireland fought as a team and eventually lost as a team, and there was plenty for their captain to be proud of despite the defeat.
A travelling brigade of Irish supporters was dwarfed by the 40,000-strong legion of Indian fans that packed the stands, but their team gave them ample reason to make themselves heard all the same. It helped that Ireland’s relentless nipping at the ankles of the more fancied Indians meant the home fans couldn’t have it all their own way, and for extended sessions there was a tangible mood of silent, even nervous apprehension in the stadium.
Spinner confident of keeping Sehwag quiet in Bangalore
Posted by: | CommentsWith pre-tournament favourites and co-host nation India next up for England in Bangalore on Sunday, many pundits are now predicting a comfortable day’s work for Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s side. When he was asked how to stop Shewag he said that they have their game plan and they are working over it.
England off-spinner Graeme Swann expects a massive improvement against India after admitting he and his team-mates played just like schoolboys in their World Cup opener against Holland. England’s campaign almost began in disastrous fashion in Nagpur as the Dutch minnows pushed them all the way before falling to a six-wicket defeat.
The Netherlands expertly took advantage of a woeful fielding display from Andrew Strauss’ men to post 292 – the highest ever score by an associate country in the World Cup. However, Swann is adamant England have enough quality in their squad to silence the partisan India supporters at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium.
