Cricket Tournaments

Now, Indians fans have something to smile and cheer about after India’s disastrous consecutive defeats in ICC T20 World Super 8. 26, June at Sabina Park in 50 overs ODI, India defeated Indies in most exciting and close match. Yuvraj with 131 innings coming off 102 balls outstandingly batted and became significant factor to India for anticipated victory. India batting line up after a long time supported each other well enough and they aggregated gigantic score of 339 runs off 6 wickets. 340 runs target was huge nevertheless as speculated Indies fired back with bat but that fire came late and they were not able to hold wickets. Consequently they all got out and succumbed to achieve the target by just 20 runs still 11 bowls spared.

Indian batting lineup has always been most powerful; each Indian batsman has on and off made bowlers sweat and frown over their own ability. On 26 June, at Jamaica again we saw Indian batsmen joshing and bashing Indies bowlers. Gautam Gambhir (13), Rohit Sharma (4) and Ravindra Jadeja (0) left the ground scoring inexpensively. Beside that Dinesh Karthik (67), Yuvraj Singh (131), MS Dhoni (41), not out Yusuf Pathan (40) and not out Harbhajan Singh (21) rampaged the pitch and not a single corner left where ball didn’t transgressed the boundary. Indian batsmen were unstoppable and Indies bowlers each trick seemed nothing but desperate plea. Yuvraj was everywhere in the scream of crowd and commentators, simply marvelous innings we saw coming from Yuvraj charismatic batting leading India to mammoth score of 339 runs off 6 wickets in 50 overs.

West Indies bowling was at its worst, each player economy reaching above 6 runs per over. Jerome Taylor, Lionel Baker and David Bernard took 1-1 wicket and Dwayne Bravo took 2 wickets. West Indies Bowlers gave batsmen ample space take shoots and every trick of in swing or off-spin was worthless in front of Yuvraj and Dinesh.

Indies got huge pressuring 340 runs target, yet it was difficult to achieve but it was never impossible for Indies. Indies got good start by Chris Gayle (37) and Runako Morton (42) and middle order played above average; Sarwan (45) and Chanderpaul (63) snatched the chance for Indies but the wickets kept falling not single batsmen after them sustained on pitch to lead Indies. Eventually when victory seemed near they all got out at 319 in 48th over by Indian bowlers.

Return of Nehra in team gave the boost to the Indian bowling. Indian bowlers fared well, RP Singh, Ishant and Harbhajan took 1-1 wickets; and Ashish Nehra and Yusuf Pathan took 3-3 wickets. Though bowlers were not able to confine Indies batsmen but still Nehra, Pathan and other bowlers didn’t let batmen sustain on pitch.

Match concluded with the close win of India and man of the match to Yuvraj Singh. Contrarily Yuvraj poked sting like a bee, as Gayle predicted for Indies.

India suffered their third consecutive defeat in the Super 8 round of the Men’s T20 World Cup competition, after they lost by 12-runs to South Africa. It was a disastrous campaign for the Men in Blue, as they could not win a single match in the second phase of the tournament. The defending champions India looked out of sorts throughout the tournament, and matches against minnows Ireland and Bangladesh did not help their cause towards gearing up for the next round. The IPL fatigue for the Indian players might have also been the reason that forced the players to come up with this kind of lackluster performance.

The South African batting got of to a sedate start before RP Singh got the better of Gibbs. This did not stop AB de Villiers from piling up the runs as he looked in supreme control throughout his innings. South African’s were looking to post a challenging total, when Indian captain MS Dhoni introduced spin into the attack. The Indian spinners especially Jadeja bowled magnificently on a slow spinning track to restrict the South Africans to a low total.

The main contributions for South Africa came from AB de Villiers, who scored 63 runs and Graeme Smith, who scored 26 runs. The rest of the South African batting line up looked fragile on the slow turning wicket. Albie Morkel, hit two boundaries in the final over as South Africa posted a score of 130, a challenging one on this slow turning track.

The Indians started the run chase in a confident manner as both Gambhir and Sharma took charge of the innings and hammered the South African pacers to all parts of the ground. India was well placed at 47 runs without the loss of any wicket after the fifth over of the innings. Things were looking in control and Indian fans expecting their team to win comfortably. However, this was short lived as South Africa introduced spin in the sixth over itself. Johan Botha then got the better of Gambhir to open up the Indian batting lineup. Botha struck a further blow to India as he removed Raina, and Duminy completed the assault by getting rid of Sharma in quick succession.

The Indian innings headed for a disaster with the dismissals of Dhoni and Pathan, as the South African spinners started to outclass the Indian batsman. The only resistance was provided by Yuvraj Singh as he scored 24 runs to keep the Indian hopes alive in the match. However, India was left to do too much in the end as they lost by 12 runs to the Proteas. The only other notable contributions were from the openers Gambhir, who scored 21 runs and Sharma, who scored 29 runs. The otherwise shaky Indian batting line up lived up to its reputation once again as they went down tamely to the South Africans. The best bowler for South Africa was J Botha as he picked up three crucial Indian wickets to turn the match in South Africa’s favor.

With this win, the Proteas remain unbeaten in the tournament. They would now be hoping to take their tally to six consecutive victories, when they take on the in form Pakistan in the First Semi Final clash. Pakistan, last year’s losing finalist will not spare an inch as they look to head for an interesting battle against South Africa.