West Indies surprised themselves and world, with a scintillating win over the defending champions India in the Lords, which witnessed a full house, thanks to frantic Indian fans.
Indian batsmen had the worst possible start, in the tournament, where they lost Rohit Sharma and Suresh Raina, to the hostile opening burst from Fidel Edwards, who made things tougher for batsmen, by clever variation of pace and unsettling batsmen by dexterously evading predictability. For the first time in the tournament India felt the absence, of Virender Shewag and his rollicking starts.
Both Jerome Taylor and Fidel Edwards used cleverly bouncers, which Indian batsmen detest and once Dwayne Bravo removed rampant Gambhir, the requirement, for consolidation became the darting need.
When you talk about consolidation, one can immediately relate no one better in Indian team than Dhoni and he did hung in there to give few quiet over’s for West Indies with Yuvraj Singh but his lethargic batting attitude could not be spared from a whip, for sake of consolidation, as his eleven from twenty three balls did not help his reputation or his team either.
Yuvraj Singh, who was earlier subdued, because of loss of early wickets did, what he was known to do best, bashing bowlers all over the park and he grafted the much needed momentum with a half – century partnership with Yusuf Pathan.
With some lusty blows from Harbhajan Singh in the final over India did managed, to a respectable target of one fifty three runs ,though it was a below par score in a good batting track without much swing.
West Indies lost Fletcher early, to the bowling of Irfan Pathan and India managed to keep Chris Gayle quiet, for early phase of period and with some two handy spinners in form of Prajhan Ojha and Harbhajan Singh India would have fancied their chances, but West Indies batsmen had other ideas.
India got rid of Gayle threat without much damage, but real hiding came in form of ‘Dwayne Bravo’, who showed what qualitative difference he has galvanised from IPL. Dwayne Bravo combined with Simmons to stage an ominous partnership, which cost India the game.
Dwayne Bravo was very aggressive and imperative in his stint in the middle, where he withered Ojha threat effectively and hit some spanking sixes to get a valuable half – century for his team and led them to an emphatic win with a over to spare.
Dhoni lucky charm has became evanescent all of a sudden and India clearly need a miracle, in their next two litmus test against England and South Africa, if they have any chances, of making into semi – finals.
Loading ...