This is what over-confidence makes

Well the one-off T20 match between India and England was just another instance of one team over estimating itself and in the process taking the opposition or granted. This time, it was not a hare-tortoise story that was the case with India but this was a result of the wrong selection of the playing XI which proved costly for India. The match definitely was a costly one for India where the loss was not restricted to one match alone but was as good as a series loss where India lost all the T20 games it played. Loss record for India is 100% in the T20 tournament against England this series.

Though only one T20 game was played, a loss in that means India lost 100% of its matches. Coming to the game, it was not a good decision to include someone like Robin Uttappa in the playing XI when one has to take a long route to trace back when exactly did Uttappa last play an international T20 match. That was not a bad decision as well when Uttappa has been a player on the to be included lists but, yesterday's scorecard says it all. All that Uttappa could score was a single before Kieswetter caught him behind the stumps.

There have been matches in this bilateral series where huge totals have been chased down but there have been no games where small totals have been defended successfully. And, with that fact in front of us, it should come in as no surprise that a total of 120 stood nowhere when it comes to chasing and England did exactly that. Though Suresh Raina was successful to a little extent, the batsman with the highest strike-rate happened to be Ashwin who scored 17 runs at a strike rate of 154.54 runs. The generosity of the Indian batsmen was evident when they gave away 2 overs maiden.

There was surprisingly nothing much to complain about the English batsmen when they had the match well in their chance. Thanks to the total of 120 set up by the Indian batsmen which didn't make any of the English batsmen to fear for. Though here were initial strikes of Hales and Kieswetter, the batsmen who came in later had little to do with most of the damage being done by the bowlers. One can go through the scorecard to see who the major wicket-takers were. If not for Jadeja, the rest of the players who returned with a wicket were part-time bowlers.

England had come to lose

It is nothing but a well sought after loss to England when they couldn't even come close to the target of 272 despite at one stage of the game being in a comfortable position at 129-0. With such a start, most of the teams in the ICC's list would have played a spoilsport to a team that had plans to whitewash their opposition rather than support the same. Keeping that initial grip apart, England could manage only 47 runs from 15 overs at a run-rate of just over 3.00 runs an over. One has to doubt whether it was the same England who whitewashed India on their previous tour.

With such a dismal performance, it is difficult to say where the problem lies with England. Was it because of the fact that the powerplay got over which was responsible for their batting debacle or was it that the Indian bowlers got their rhythm only after the 21^st over or last but not the least, if not for their openers, no one had come prepared for the game? One can understand the problem the English batsmen have playing spin bowling under sub-continent conditions. But, if someone like Ashwin and Jadeja can tackle players with a decade old experience, there can be little said about such team.

There were the likes of Jonathan Trott, Ian Bell and Ravi Bopara who could have done a bit to save some face for their team. Earlier as well, things didn't go on as smoothly for the Indian batsmen when Gautam Gambhir and Rahane had to be patient when facing the new ball. In the end, it was Dhoni's quickfire 75* runs that saw the Indian total cross the 250 run mark. In my opinion, Mahendra Singh Dhoni should have been the man of the match along with Ravindra Jadeja. But, Jadeja was also not a bad choice for the award.

First of all, it was a wrong decision to allow the hosts to bat on a pitch that was tough for the batsmen which was evident when hard hitting batsmen like Dhoni and Gambhir had to fight with patience initially until the could settle down. Due to that mistake from Alistair Cook, Dhoni and with that India got the advantage of slog overs towards the end of the innings which Dhoni efficiently used. But still, losing 9 wickets for 47 runs speaks it all for England to have got used to losing or donated the match to India. With a T20 game left, one has to see whether India can make it 6-0.

How much money did you betting freaks lose?

Well the result of last night's encounter between Australia and England would have sent shocking waves to all those cricket lovers and more so to those freaks who would have gone on to have a bet on their favorite team Australia. It would not be wrong to say that the only supporters for England would have been the ones who hate Australia for their dominance in world cricket and who cannot digest the fact that Australia are the most unbeatable team in world cricket at present. And the other bunch of England supporters would be the people from Great Britain who can never support any other team but their own nation.

Well that is not anyone's mistake for, it would be a disaster well in advance for all those who would have had their bet on England rather than Australia. People would hardly have their bet on any team that would face Australia for reasons no necessary here and needless at the same time. With much people betting on Australia, people who would have bet on England would have made an exceptional killing no matter what. However, if anybody would ask me, it should have been Australia to walk away with the honors and not England. It was Australia who overcame all hurdles enroute to the finals.

The match of Australia against Pakistan in the semi finals of the world cup can never be forgot and they deserve all sorts of applause available in the world for that. Australia had not lost a single match enroute to the finals of the world cup with England on the other hand having lost to West Indies in the initial stages of the tournament and would have had to make a grand exit from the tournament in case the match against Ireland in the group stage happened to take off smoothly. But, destiny had totally different plans and England took home their first honors.

This is one of the rare instances where history has not found to repeat itself. If one goes by India - Pakistan encounters in world cups, India have won all four matches against Pakistan tough outside the world Pakistan has won more matches against India than it has lost. And so has been the case with Brian Lara who got to thr highest individual score in test cricket when he scored an unbeaten score of 400 against the same opposition on the same ground. But, if England's history in the finals of the world tournament is considered, England have lost all the finals despite being in winning situations against Australia in 1987 and the West Indies in the 2004 ICC CT.

Bangladesh betters England

Well finally, yesterday England come out victorious after beating Bangladesh by just 45 runs when the expected margin would have surely been more than a hundred runs. It is no big task for England to defeat or even whitewash some Bangladeshi team which is a known fact. But, at the same time, a strong team of the caliber like that of England would be expected to take the game totally away from Bangladesh with the standard of cricket in England given a closer look at. But, with England gasping for win in every match, some scrutiny is required I suppose before coming to conclusions.

In the 1^st one dayer at Dhaka, England did well to successfully chase down the target of 229 runs imposed by Bangladesh but not before the Bangladeshi opener Tamim Iqbal notched up a hundred and as a result was also awarded the man of the match. This was not before the England captain Alistair Cook bought in 7 of his bowlers to contain the Bangladeshi batsmen when just 3 to 4 bowlers of a strong team could have got the job done. Perhaps, had England taken the Bangladesh team lightly, they shouldn't have committed the same mistake yet again in the games that followed.

But, that never seemed so in the 2^nd as well as the 3^rd one dayers at Mirpur and Chittagong respectively. The games that followed the first one dayer happened to be worse than the one mentioned above. The second one dayer was the worst of them all when England won the match by just 2 wickets First of all the target of 260 that the Bangladesh team imposed on England was too much considering the status of both the teams. And then, winning the match by a small margin with just 7 balls to spare is another blunder which points fingers towards the English team.

There has been teams before as well who have been imposed a target of 250+ by Bangladesh, with the recent such instance being in the tri nation tournament that happened in January involving SL, India and Bangladesh where Bangladesh had 2 scores above 250. But, in both the cases the opposition also belted the Bangladeshi bowlers at will and took the game away from them in a one sided fashion. And in the 3^rd ODI, England could not even get all ten Bangladeshi wickets though they won the game by 45 runs. Scorecard suggests the involvement of almost all Bangladeshi batsmen enroute to their total of 239 at the end of the innings.