Tendulkar delivers ( At Last !!)
A man of the stature like Tendulkar should have got tons of headlines like this but believe me, they have been far and few but this one took the viewers back to vintage days. He uncorked stroke after stroke - Short arm pull, straight drive, hook that went for a 6, lofted 6..the innings had it all and more than anything else, the manner in which these strokes were played did produce a counter attacking theme. More of this later but let be begin with SA innings.
Dravid was lucky with the toss and India began bowling well in the 2nd ODI ; The freak run out of De Villiers (no slouch in running) definitely started things well. RP Singh, who has been a passenger for a while produced a good delivery to castle the dangerous Kallis and from there on it was an uphill battle for SA bats. Van Wyk, who is filling in for Greame Smith is not the swiftest of scorers and SA innings was of to a slow start. Zaheer and RP bowled well but Ishant had an ordinary beginning. Chwala was decent and Yuvaraj was amongst the wickets but somehow I felt that India should have closed out things, as soon as Gibbs or later Dummy got out. Boucher came up with one of those useful knocks he is known for and 226 was a decent score, considering that SA was at one time 4-131 in 32 overs.
Ntini ran in hard as ever and tried short pitching it to Sachin and the viewers were up for a treat; it almost looked like the last edition of Worldcup match against Pakistan and Sachin was off the blocks quickly. Ganguly played sedately and was unable to rotate the strike but with the ask proving to be not that much, there was no panic. I liked the awesome six off Nel , when Sachin hit a gorgeous hook and the omni present grin disappeared off Nel's face. When the big 3 got out quickly, the ask climbed and there was another crisis brewing when Dhoni got out with India still 85 adrift but found a cool head of Karthik. Dinesh is not going to be your power hitter but his hustle- bustle style of play can be depended on for run a ball and India had to tread carefully since they had a long tail. Another wicket would have put the series away for goods but Yuvi- Karthik partnership gritted it out. Yuvaraj, who did not look to be in good touch was finding it difficult to be fluent but he hung in there and when he deposited Hall over square leg, the ask had come down. In the end, it was a hard fought victory for India that will keep up their spirits for the decider.
Dravid was lucky with the toss and India began bowling well in the 2nd ODI ; The freak run out of De Villiers (no slouch in running) definitely started things well. RP Singh, who has been a passenger for a while produced a good delivery to castle the dangerous Kallis and from there on it was an uphill battle for SA bats. Van Wyk, who is filling in for Greame Smith is not the swiftest of scorers and SA innings was of to a slow start. Zaheer and RP bowled well but Ishant had an ordinary beginning. Chwala was decent and Yuvaraj was amongst the wickets but somehow I felt that India should have closed out things, as soon as Gibbs or later Dummy got out. Boucher came up with one of those useful knocks he is known for and 226 was a decent score, considering that SA was at one time 4-131 in 32 overs.
Ntini ran in hard as ever and tried short pitching it to Sachin and the viewers were up for a treat; it almost looked like the last edition of Worldcup match against Pakistan and Sachin was off the blocks quickly. Ganguly played sedately and was unable to rotate the strike but with the ask proving to be not that much, there was no panic. I liked the awesome six off Nel , when Sachin hit a gorgeous hook and the omni present grin disappeared off Nel's face. When the big 3 got out quickly, the ask climbed and there was another crisis brewing when Dhoni got out with India still 85 adrift but found a cool head of Karthik. Dinesh is not going to be your power hitter but his hustle- bustle style of play can be depended on for run a ball and India had to tread carefully since they had a long tail. Another wicket would have put the series away for goods but Yuvi- Karthik partnership gritted it out. Yuvaraj, who did not look to be in good touch was finding it difficult to be fluent but he hung in there and when he deposited Hall over square leg, the ask had come down. In the end, it was a hard fought victory for India that will keep up their spirits for the decider.
posted by Crick_Love at 10:26 PM
1 Comments:
Could not agree with you more. Yuvaraj was unable to place the ball but somehow got lucky with the big hits. I loved the run a ball fluency of Karthik.
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