Cricket Tournaments

‘And a tremendous win by West Indies over India.’ We used to hear about this news quite frequently during the 1980s and 90s. Defeating West Indies in their own den is even more difficult, with their fast bowlers who were harrowing the batsmen for almost 2 decades. But their performances have just been dropping since then.

Once hailed as the dominant team, nowadays aren’t even close to being one. India taking their apparent ‘A’ team, says it all. India’s series against West Indies was basically a chance for youngsters to prove themselves and a chance for India to test their bench-strength. But with West Indies struggling big time and hardly able to get their combinations right, India had a good chance to set it straight up for them. After winning 3 matches convincingly, India was already out there to prove what they have in store for the world. But the winning combination was changed in order to give everyone an equal chance, but the chance to whitewash West Indies was lost and over. Losing the last 2 ODIs, the sight wasn’t great.

HIGHS

Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Amit Mishra have been the highs of this series. Rohit Sharma pioneered Indian innings and helped India India win in a couple of matches. Averaging 128 and scoring around 257 runs in the 5 matches he played, he obviously has acknowledged many greats who have predicted him to be a future great for India. Kohli, another person who has been scoring consistently for India has had a pretty good series, but is capable of much more. Scoring 199 runs in 5 matches, he couldn’t score at all in a couple of matches as he lost out on capitalizing in the games. Parthiv Patel also gave us some solid starts in the games, and is trying to capitalize into the 2nc choice wicket-keeper place in the squad.

Among the bowlers, Amit Mishra was tremendous. Aggressive, he has always been looking for wickets. Picking up 11 wickets in the series with an exceptional economy rate of just 4, he has an awesome future to look at. Along with Harbhajan Singh, a defensive off-spinner, this leg-spinner can have a phenomenal partnership in the spin-bowling department. Munaf Patel has carried his form since the World Cup and looked good here again, picking up 8 wickets in the 3 matches he played.

LOWS

Suresh Raina was an utter disappointment. Playing rash shots, he was certainly over-burdened by the captaincy.  Making him a captain was a bad decision anyway, since he doesn’t have much experience anyways. Virat Kohli, who had the experience and certainly a good captain, could have been given the opportunity. Even Harbhajan Singh, a senior player could have had the chance to be what he ever wanted to be. Scoring just 82 runs, he certainly didn’t play to his capabilities. Even Shikhar Dhawan, lost out on a golden chance to prove his worth scoring as low as 69 runs, which included a fifty. Inconsistent performances are going to hurt. Manoj Tiwary, though didn’t get enough opportunities at the moment, but he certainly couldn’t get in through how many ever opportunities he was given.

Harbhajan Singh, being the senior-most player in the squad with his experience should have inspired the youngsters. Instead he himself wasn’t playing to his capabilities. Picking up 4 wickets in the 3 matches he played, his economy rate was good, and shows his defensiveness and the tendency to not look for the wickets. Even, Praveen Kumar was in the same league though his economy rate wasn’t as good as Bhajji’s. Even Ashwin couldn’t capitalize on the opportunities given to him. Actually he quite failed picking up just a wicket in the 2 matches he played.

WORSE

The biggest disappointment of the tour being, Subramanium Badrinath. Hailed as a great player, ignored by selectors all the time scored just 40 runs in the 4 matches he played.  Scoring well in the IPL, he lost the opportunity he was waiting for. Then why perform in the league games, if you don’t want to perform at the big stage? Nerves! Playing at the big stage is always a challenge and he needs to cope up with it. Dhoni brings out the best in him, and possibly his run tally could have been a lot better if he would have been around. Yusuf Pathan also couldn’t live up to his reputation of being a pinch-hitter and a clean striker of the ball. Poor selection of shots, he had a good opportunity to retain his place in the last ODI. When India actually needed him in the last ODI where wickets were consistently falling, he got a good start but fell for 30. Again losing out big time.

Ishant Sharma, who had a great opportunity to regain his lost glory again disappointed. Hailed as the one to put off fire in India’s fast bowling department when he actually made Ricky Ponting hop around in his crease he certainly has lost all the confidence in himself. He has to work on himself, indeed very hard.

It was a dream, but the dream just remained a dream. A whitewash and what would have been the frolic in the country. History would have been made, and how!  A golden opportunity, lost big time for the players as well as for the history to be made. Hopefully, they will create more opportunities for themselves in the near future.

A superbly constructed, unbeaten 75 off just 47 balls from Manoj Tiwary enabled Kolkata Knight Riders to come out of their batting slumber and post a challenging 183 for 5 against Kings XI Punjab at their home ground, Mohali. Comeback man Ajit Agarkar then struck two crucial blows to pave the way for Kolkata’s first win in four games, that by an impressive margin of 39 runs.

The home side were never in the hunt during the tough chase. After an unlucky start, losing the in-form Ravi Bopara (0), who was erroneously declared lbw to Shane Bond, Kolkata kept things tight for a couple of overs before Yuvraj Singh opened up. He began to look in his elements, dispatching Ashok Dinda and Agarkar to the fence on couple of occasions each.

But, the latter had a last laugh when Yuvraj mistimed a quickish short ball and lobbed it straight up in the air, Tiwary taking an amazing catch, diving sideways. Not much later, Agarkar sent back Bisla as well for 22 to peg Punjab back, the batsman not being given room to free his arms by the experienced bowler.

As things turned out, that was the game, with Sri Lankans Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara struggling again.

Earlier, Sourav Ganguly won the toss and decided to take first strike on a belter of a pitch. Kolkata’s innings comprised of two distinct phases – a great start and a sensational end followed by a consolidatory phase in between. 19 runs came off the first over from Brett Lee, Chris Gayle deciding to take on the Aussie speedster returning from a serious injury. But, if Kolkata fans thought it was the beginning of some slam bang viewing to follow, they were completely false.

On the contrary, Gayle’s short blitz ended up being the storm before the calm. The West Indian ended up falling for a disappoint 14 from 12 balls, Shalabh Srivastava getting him with a well-planned shorter one.

Srivastava continued with his good work when he sent back Mandeep Singh as well for 4. The left-armer’s effort, coupled with good support from Vikramjeet Malik, saw Kolkata’s run rate falling drastically, and they were in serious danger of ending up short of a desirable target yet again. Ganguly and Tiwary, who was recalled after his surprise exclusion for the earlier games, went about doing the rebuilding task.

However, the question remained whether they would be able to accelerate in the nick of time. When the strategic break was taken at the end of 9 overs, Kolkata were disappointingly placed at 65 for 2. However, realising the value of runs, Ganguly came out of his shell and timed a couple to the boundary.

Tiwary too joined in the act and played some delectable strokes. But, just when Kolkata seemed to be on the up swing, Ganguly fell for 50. His knock, which consumed 40 balls was a good one, but not electrifying by T20 standards.

Kolkata would have ended up with another under par score, but for the efforts of Tiwary. His late hitting, slamming 21 off the last over bowled by Irfan Pathan, which included two punchy sixes, shifted the momentum back in Kolkata’s favour. Still, the total wasn’t match-winning. But, the Kolkata bowlers were competent enough to keep a hapless Kings XI down.

In 20-20 cricket, the value of keeping wickets in hand is often underestimated. However, it is equally important to ensure that you don’t leave too much to be done at the fag end of the innings. Finding the proper balance is most important.

While the Kolkata Knight Riders managed to succeed in the first aspect, they failed miserably in the second and, as a result, handed the under pressure Rajasthan Royals their first win in the tournament at the Motera stadium in Ahmedabad. Chasing Rajasthan’s challenging 168 for 7 on one of the slowest pitches in the tournament, the Knight Riders could muster only 134 for the loss of five wickets.

The Royals, for the first time in this IPL, looked at ease as the pitch offered enough for their spinners. Skipper Shane Warne was smart enough to sense the occasion and open the bowling with Yusuf Pathan. And the all-rounder, who failed with the bat, responded immediately.

He sent back opener Manoj Tiwary with a quickish one, which Tiwary failed to read and was clean bowled. Brad Hodge and Cheteshwar Pujara then strung together a useful partnership. However, the Royals ensured that they remained in the hunt by not allowing either of the batsmen to run away with the game. Warne also played his part by keeping the runs down from his end though he could not pick up any wickets. And the tactics paid rich dividends.

As the pressure and required run-rate mounted, Pujara was taken out for 29 by pacer Siddharth Trivedi and the aggressive Pathan returned to knock out Hodge, bowling him through the gate as the batsman tried to break free from the shackles imposed. Hodge contributed 36 from 34, but in the context of the game, it was a poor effort.

He fell at the start of the 15th over, by which time the Knight Riders had scored only 95 and had a tall mountain to climb despite having wickets in hand.

Also, it did not help that the ball wasn’t coming on to the bat towards the later part of the match. Sourav Ganguly struggled like to time the ball at all as Munaf Patel and Shaun Tait finished off things very well for the Royals, bowling some accurate Yorker length deliveries.

Ganguly’s ordeal ended in the final over when he was dismissed for 33 by Patel. But, the match was over long before. Owais Shah hit a couple of mighty sixes, but in between those two strokes, he also found the going tough. The Royals took a cue from the battering they received against Bangalore and bowled some good short deliveries as well.

With the bat too they put in an improved performance. Abhishek Jhunjhunwala led the way with a composed 45, but Adam Voges quickfire, unbeaten 37 from 22 balls, 17 of which came in the last over from Ishant Sharma was equally crucial. In between too, the Royals batted sensibly.

After losing Michael Lumb early, Naman Ojha and Faiz Fazal too turns to go after the attack. Thus, the runs kept coming despite the loss of wickets. This approach saw them garner a fighting total pf 168, which was enough to earn them their first points as Kolkata mistimed their chase.