Sunday, February 15, 2015

India preserve unblemished World Cup record against Pakistan

The ICC Cricket World Cup 2015                                                                                    Date: 15/02/2015  
Game 4
India Vs Pakistan at Adelaide Oval

Live telecast of cricket matches in the 80s and 90s was a luxury. Test matches were telecast live for one hour each in the morning and evening on Doordarshan, the state-run television channel. Highlights of Test matches were shown late in the night. One day matches became a TV regular only after the ‘96 world cup.

We have come a long way from there. With the proliferation of cricket matches & broadcasters in the 21st century, a game of cricket is not really a novelty anymore. Round the clock someone is playing someone somewhere in the world in one format or the other. There are sports channels dedicated to cricket that ensure uninterrupted supply of live or recorded cricket matches.

But what we have gained in access we have lost in value and definitely in quality. Playing careers have shortened. Cricket’s governing bodies are being run by politicians and businessmen who, these days, do not even care to pretend that they are doing it for the love of the game. There are very few contests now that evoke genuine burst of emotions from the fans and followers alike.

India-Pakistan games, fortunately, have preserved their charm through a combination of rarity and ability to stir emotions of the common man on both sides of the border. A world cup match, that too, is like a wedding in the family. Everyone is around to be a part of it. Uncles who cannot stop deriding today’s cricketers make sure they occupy the vantage seats in front of the TV. Office work is given a short shrift and indulgent bosses happily ignore the missing employees.

India and Pakistan met in Adelaide today in front of 41000 fans. The laud, raucous crowd must have made them feel closer to home. Fans had travelled from all parts of the world to witness this game. India went in with 5 bowlers, picking both Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja. Pakistan too, picked their specialist spinner Yasir Shah to complete the five-pronged attack consisting of Mohd Irfan, Wahab Riaz, Sohail Khan and Shahid Afridi.

MS Dhoni won the toss and chose to bat first. Long gone are the days when MS Dhoni would happily chase any total conceded by his prodigal bowlers. The batting line up is simply not in that form any more. Virat Kohli has looked scratchy in Australia, Shikhar Dhawan’s technique brutally exposed by quality fast bowling. Though Ajinkya Rahane has looked comfortable but has never built a monumental score. So choosing what to do must have been a tricky situation for MS Dhoni.

India opened with Shikhar Dhawan and Rohit Sharma. They started cautiously and just when it looked like they will give a formidable opening to India, Rohit Sharma’s brain-fade arrived in the form of a mis-timed pull to Sohail Khan. It brought Virat Kohli to the crease who started very cautiously, never in a hurry to dominate. First 10 overs produced 42 runs but had given enough confidence to Dhawan and Kohli.

The way Dhawan overcame his mental demons today was really praiseworthy. He was tested by Mohd Irfan’s height and short ball on more than one occasion. Misbah-Ul-Haq’s field placings also were smart and would have rattled Dhawan enough to go for a release shot. But he held his nerve and absorbed the pressure. Soon both Kohli and Dhwana had the measure of the pitch and Pakistan bowling. Shahid Afridi and Yasir Shah could not maintain the control and both the Indian batsmen started extracting mistakes out of them.

Virat Kohli was also the beneficiary of a couple of drops from Pakistan. Yasir Shah could not hold on to a very difficult chance when he ran towards mid-wicket from long on and dived only to see the ball slip away from his fingers. Second chance was more straightforward. Umar Akmal, keeping the wickets, spilled a regulation chance off Haris Sohail’s left arm spin.

Against the run of play, though, the burgeoning stand between Kohli and Dhawan was broken by slight mis-judgement on Kohli’s part when he sent Dhawan back after taking a couple of strides. Misbah’s direct hit found the diving Dhawan inches short of the crease.

Suresh Raina was sent in ahead of Rahane and he immediately got going. He and Kohli put together 110 in 93 balls. Virat Kohli reached a richly deserved hundred and once again was the bulwark of Indian batting. It will come as a relief for the Indian management to see Kohli so decisively hitting form. Suresh Raina relished the limited overs challenge and was soon carting Pakistan bowling to his favoured leg side. He reached his fifty off just 40 deliveries and India were poised for a score in excess of 320.

That’s when Pakistan bowlers found their inner mongrel and completely threw the Indian innings off the track. The slide started with the centurion, Kohli, chasing a wide delivery from Sohail Khan. India were 273 in the 46th over when they lost Kohli. Over the next 28 deliveries they managed just 27 runs and lost 4 more wickets. Though Sohail Khan reaped the maximum benefit by taking a five-for, it was Wahab Riaz who took the steam out of the Indian innings. He was extremely quick and bowled an awkward length which offered neither room nor height to send the ball to the boundary. Indian batting looking quite clueless against raw pace of Riaz and ended up with a slightly under par 300 for the loss of 7 wickets.

Pakistan opened with Younis Khan, an unusual choice, and Ahmed Shehzad. Younis perished in the 4th over trying to fend a Shami bouncer. After that Shehzad and Haris Sohail steadied the ship and started steady accumulation. Haris was in good touch, the ball coming sweetly off his bat. Just when the partnership had started to threaten India, Haris edged Ashwin to the first slip. This brought Misbah to the crease. Pakistan’s progress was slow but they had wickets in hand. With Shehzad having gotten his eye in and Misbah, Umar Akmal, Afridi in the ranks, the game was heading towards an interesting finish.

However, the loss of 3 wickets in 23rd and 24th overs pushed Pakistan firmly on the back foot. They tried to recover through Misbah’s patience and Afridi’s strokeplay. But Afridi fell to a shot that was a mirror image of the one that dismissed him in the 2011 WC semi-final in Mohali. Shami bowled a full-toss that dipped on Afridi and all he could do was to scythe it over 30-yard circle on the off side. Virat Kohli ran back, kept his eyes on the ball and took a good catch over his right shoulder. Couple of deliveries later Wahab Riaz edged behind to Dhoni.

Misbah fought gamely from there on but with the asking rate crossing 10 runs per over and only the tail for company all he could salvage was a decent total for his team. A little application from his team-mates would have made a lot of difference today. His contribution 76 to the eventual total of 224. India won the game by 76 runs when Sohail Khan holed out at long-on to Mohit Sharma.

It was quite heartening to see the way Ravichandran Ashwin bowled today. He relied more on conventional off breaks and bowled a tight line. For the first time since 1979 any Indian off-spinner had bowled 3 maidens in a world cup game. S Venkataraghavan was the last one to do it. He got good drift and extracted fair bit of turn from the pitch. In quite a break from the tradition, India’s seamers were accurate today and got their bouncers right on most occasions.

The World Cup has begun well for the beleaguered Indian team. Today’s was a team effort where three batsmen contributed handsomely to the total and all five bowlers bowled with discipline. This win will definitely take a lot of pressure off this team. With the fans happy and rejoicing they can now focus on the task of defending their shaky crown. 

Saturday, February 14, 2015

Australia open account with huge win over England

The ICC Cricket World Cup 2015                                                                                     Date: 14/02/2015
Game 2
Australia Vs England at Melbourne Cricket Ground

The ICC Cricket World Cup began today with the co-hosts, Australia and New Zealand, facing the same opponents they have been playing against over the last one month. New Zealand hosted Sri Lanka in Christchurch and registered a big win. New Zealand are being viewed as serious contenders to the title. Fans and pundits around the world feel that this Kiwi team has the skillset, form and sense of togetherness required to shed the underdog title for good. Their team’s performance today gave another reason to the tiny nation to believe that they can come out of the shadow of their antipodean big brother and claim a place of their own in the cricketing pantheon of world conquering teams.

While the Kiwis were doing short work of the Sri Lankans, the Melbourne Cricket ground witnessed another chapter of Anglo-Australian rivalry today. Both the teams went in with some uncertainty over the team combination. The overnight rain in Melbourne added another dimension to the task of selecting the best XI. England finally chose to have Gary Ballance at No 3, leaving out the woefully out of form Ravi Bopara. They also entrusted Moeen Ali with the responsibility of being the sole spinner. Australia, as expected, decided to rest Michael Clarke. Like England, Australia also chose the part time off spin of Glenn Maxwell over the left arm spin of Xavier Doherty. Injury to James Faulkner had already ensured that both Mitchell Marsh and Shane Watson feature in the XI.

England won the toss and backed their bowling attack to put Australia on the back foot. It was a curious choice considering the benign drop-in pitch at Melbourne which offers little help to bowlers and usually stays true through-out the game. Maybe the England management was influenced by the overnight rain in Melbourne and with an extra batsman in the XI fancied their chances of hunting down any Australian total.

The innings did not begin very well for England, though. Chris Woakes let go a relatively simple chance in the very first over. James Anderson had slightly drifted down the leg side and the uppish flick from Aaron Finch’s bat was misjudged by Woakes in its height. Finch was on nought and made England pay via his brutal 135 off 128 balls laced with 12 hits to the fence and 3 over it. Most regrettably for England, this was not the only favour extended to him by them today. They let go off a couple of easy run-out chances and finally managed to see Finch’s back when Eoin Morgan scored a direct hit from mid-off. Finch left the MCG to a rousing applause having become only the fourth Australian batsman to hit a century on his World Cup debut. Curiously this was the first Australian century against England in the World Cups.

Earlier, today England opened the attack with Anderson and Broad, bringing Woakes at first change. Broad displayed his sense for occasion and right from the word go he was fast and accurate. In the 8th over he beat Warner with pace and swing to disturb his wickets. On the very next delivery Shane Watson fell to a lovely out-swinger when he could do nothing but offer a genuine outside edge to the keeper. Steven Smith could not recreate his Bradman-esque form of the summer and fell cheaply to Chris Woakes. This brought the struggling George Bailey to the crease. He has been terribly out of touch and his struggles in the middle have been palpably embarrassing. However during the course of the next 26 overs and 146 runs he showed why the Australian management has stuck with him. He took his time, kept the scoreboard ticking and made life comfortable for Finch at the other end. With Bailey looking solid, Finch could go for his shots and was soon punishing England.

This partnership set the stage beautifully for Australia. Even their departure in the batting powerplay meant that Maxwell, Marsh and Haddin had just enough time to have a look in and then go berserk. Glenn Maxwell seems to have learnt to put a price on his wicket. He is so powerful and crafty that runs are never far away from him. Till now the only question was whether he has the mental discipline to choose his scoring shots and areas prudently. His batting in the last 5-6 games has given enough evidence that he is calming down in his approach. This only makes him extremely dangerous and with more time in the middle, in important games, he can very well become Australia’s answer to a certain AB De Villiers. Today, he started with singles and respected good deliveries instead of going after everything thrown at him. This allowed him to brutalise anything of poor line and length. As a result, without too much of blood and gore he managed 66 runs off 40 deliveries to propel Australia to 342 for the loss of 9 wickets.

Australia lost 9 wickets only due to Steven Finn’s 5 wicket haul which included a hat-trick in the 50th over. Haddin, Maxwell & Mitchell Johnson fell to very good catches off the last three balls of the innings to give Finn and England something to clap their hands about.

A target of 343 in front of the MCG crowd was always going to be difficult for England and they showed no intensity or desire to go for it either. The innings was soon reeling at 92 for the loss of 6 wickets in the 22nd over. None of the top-6 showed any stomach for a fight. Ali, Bell, Ballance, Morgan fell too easily to the traps laid down for them and in the process the young Mitchell Marsh claimed a five-for of his own. He was helped by some outstanding fielding by his team-mates, especially by Steven Smith’s Superman-like leap to interject Jos Buttler’s rasping drive at short cover.

Only Chris Woakes gave some company to the diminutive James Taylor who looked in fluent touch and was quite willing to experiment. He brought out lap-shots over fine-leg, reverse sweeps, upper cuts to stroke his way to 98 before the last man James Anderson was run out in the confusion over the LBW appeal against him. It so transpired that after the original decision from Aleem Dar to declare James Taylor leg before wicket was over-turned, Australia appealed for a run-out of James Anderson at the other end whom they had found short of his crease. This appeal was withheld and James Taylor was left stranded on 98, this time for sure.

Though Taylor’s fight-back gave some respectability to the English total, they were never in the hunt. Australian bowling was accurate and hostile. However, it would not be completely unfair to say that the outcome of the game was decided after the first innings. This is a long tournament and the top 8 teams have a very good chance of qualifying for the knock-outs. England, however, must find some form and consistency if they do not wish to make this group stage harder for themselves than it should be.