Rejoice all ardent Indian cricket supporters and fans, team India has just thrashed team England by a convincing nine wicket margin 47 minutes after lunch on the fifth and final day of the ongoing test match at Ahmedabad's Sardar Patel Gujarat stadium........
Mention should surely be made of England captain Alastair Cook's monumental and epochal effort, this doughty Englishman defied the much vaunted Indian spin twins for over nine and a half hours and 400+ deliveries, everything that was hurled with him was met with a straight bat that was as wide as a barn door and everything that was wayward was duly punished with the contempt it deserved; a Ojha special that turned wickedly off the straight was required to breach his defences and open the floodgates as far as team India was concerned........
He was well complimented in his valiant efforts to salvage some respectability for his team by an equally determined and valiant wicket keeper batsman who answers to the name of Matt Prior, this gentleman who averages in excess of 43 in the longest form off the game put paid to team India's aspirations of winding up the test on day four with a 160 odd run partnership with his brave skipper, with 91 being his individual share of the spoils and only the vagaries off a fifth day pitch halted his imperious march towards a hundred/century that he so richly deserved.......
The fact that these two above mentioned gentlemen scored more than 80% of the team total in their second innings must surely be causing the England team management many a sleepless night as their other batting stalwarts like Kevin Petersen and Ian Bell struggled to come to terms with a viciously turning and sometimes deceptive surface as these two batsmen have to surely contribute handsomely to their team's cause if the Englishmen want to make a fist of the remaining three test matches in the series and salvage their lost pride........
Kevin Petersen seems to have developed some kind of mental block or fear factor against left arm tweakers and was defeated by their guile in both innings of this recently concluded test match, this English version of Virender Sehwag has been dismissed 26 times thus far by left arm tweakers in the course of his glittering test career and will soon have to set right this anomaly in both his as well as his team's interests as for Ian Bell both his footwork, shot selection and temperament let him down big time in this ordeal by fire on Indian soil........
As for team India, Cheteshwar Pujara, Pragyan Ojha, Umesh Yadav, Virender Sehwag and Yuvraj Singh were the biggest plus point to have emerged from this match, Pujara ended up with an undefeated or unbeaten match aggregate of 247 runs and did no harm whatsoever to the lofty claims being made about his being a natural successor to the seemingly impregnable Rahul Sharad Dravid..........
The Nawab of Najafgarh, Virender Sehwag, did certainly rediscover his midas touch and vaunted form with a brutal century in the team's first outing, this century that took it's time in coming after a rather long two plus years long interval did certainly warm the cockles of all Virender Sehwag supporters and raise expectations of an encore in the remaining three test matches in this series.......
Hyderabadi left arm tweaker, Pragyan Ojha certainly did no harm to erstwhile skipper Saurav Ganguly's claims about his being India's number one spinner no harm, his match haul of nine wickets for a little over 170 odd runs did certainly put paid to his supposedly more gifted spin twin Ravichandran Ashwin's claims about being team India's numero uno spinner as far as this test match was concerned at least; as for Yuvraj Singh's 70 plus run knock in India's first innings, it certainly must have given him a lot of confidence and made him feel that he certainly does belong at this level........
The English lions will have to do some intense soul searching and introspection about their team composition, bowling attack as well as their batsmen's approach towards negating the wiles of the Indian spinners before the start of the second test match at Mumbai's hallowed Wankhede stadium, as for team India they certainly can put their feet up and bask in the aftermath of a hard fought test win with selection headaches pertaining to ageing warhorse Zaheer being preferred over young steed Ishant Sharma being the only issue that the team management and selectors need to address........
Mention should surely be made of England captain Alastair Cook's monumental and epochal effort, this doughty Englishman defied the much vaunted Indian spin twins for over nine and a half hours and 400+ deliveries, everything that was hurled with him was met with a straight bat that was as wide as a barn door and everything that was wayward was duly punished with the contempt it deserved; a Ojha special that turned wickedly off the straight was required to breach his defences and open the floodgates as far as team India was concerned........
He was well complimented in his valiant efforts to salvage some respectability for his team by an equally determined and valiant wicket keeper batsman who answers to the name of Matt Prior, this gentleman who averages in excess of 43 in the longest form off the game put paid to team India's aspirations of winding up the test on day four with a 160 odd run partnership with his brave skipper, with 91 being his individual share of the spoils and only the vagaries off a fifth day pitch halted his imperious march towards a hundred/century that he so richly deserved.......
The fact that these two above mentioned gentlemen scored more than 80% of the team total in their second innings must surely be causing the England team management many a sleepless night as their other batting stalwarts like Kevin Petersen and Ian Bell struggled to come to terms with a viciously turning and sometimes deceptive surface as these two batsmen have to surely contribute handsomely to their team's cause if the Englishmen want to make a fist of the remaining three test matches in the series and salvage their lost pride........
Kevin Petersen seems to have developed some kind of mental block or fear factor against left arm tweakers and was defeated by their guile in both innings of this recently concluded test match, this English version of Virender Sehwag has been dismissed 26 times thus far by left arm tweakers in the course of his glittering test career and will soon have to set right this anomaly in both his as well as his team's interests as for Ian Bell both his footwork, shot selection and temperament let him down big time in this ordeal by fire on Indian soil........
As for team India, Cheteshwar Pujara, Pragyan Ojha, Umesh Yadav, Virender Sehwag and Yuvraj Singh were the biggest plus point to have emerged from this match, Pujara ended up with an undefeated or unbeaten match aggregate of 247 runs and did no harm whatsoever to the lofty claims being made about his being a natural successor to the seemingly impregnable Rahul Sharad Dravid..........
The Nawab of Najafgarh, Virender Sehwag, did certainly rediscover his midas touch and vaunted form with a brutal century in the team's first outing, this century that took it's time in coming after a rather long two plus years long interval did certainly warm the cockles of all Virender Sehwag supporters and raise expectations of an encore in the remaining three test matches in this series.......
Hyderabadi left arm tweaker, Pragyan Ojha certainly did no harm to erstwhile skipper Saurav Ganguly's claims about his being India's number one spinner no harm, his match haul of nine wickets for a little over 170 odd runs did certainly put paid to his supposedly more gifted spin twin Ravichandran Ashwin's claims about being team India's numero uno spinner as far as this test match was concerned at least; as for Yuvraj Singh's 70 plus run knock in India's first innings, it certainly must have given him a lot of confidence and made him feel that he certainly does belong at this level........
The English lions will have to do some intense soul searching and introspection about their team composition, bowling attack as well as their batsmen's approach towards negating the wiles of the Indian spinners before the start of the second test match at Mumbai's hallowed Wankhede stadium, as for team India they certainly can put their feet up and bask in the aftermath of a hard fought test win with selection headaches pertaining to ageing warhorse Zaheer being preferred over young steed Ishant Sharma being the only issue that the team management and selectors need to address........
No comments:
Post a Comment