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.

Sweet revenge 1 for India

It is needless to be said about the way Indians will take on the English team on their return series to India where they are scheduled to play 5 one dayers and one T20 game. Luckily for England, there will be no test matches to worry about. Had this been something similar to the Ashes, they would have retained the title for a mere 2 months before surrendering the same to India. Yesterday, at Hyderabad India registered a first win against England by 126 runs which was more than any margin of victory for both teams in the last two series played against each other.

The English bowlers had absolutely no answers to the helicopter shot by Mahendra Singh Dhoni who top scored with 87 and was awarded the man of the match. There were contributions from other batsmen as well that included Raina, Ravindra Jadeja and Gautam Gambhir to a greater extent. The only bowler from England who tasted success a little bit was Graeme Swann who had an over maiden and a wicket to his name. Of course, even Steven Finn and Jade Dernbach also returned with a wicket but were at the same time belted for more than 6.0 runs an over.

If the batsmen did their work by scoring runs and keeping the scoreboard ticking, even the bowlers were not short of performing their duty when no bowler bowled his complete quota of 10 overs and still saw all 10 wickets from England tumbling as though it was a day 5 of a test match. If not for Alistair Cook, no other batsmen had a worthy contribution with the bat though Jonathan Trott stayed there at the crease for a decent amount of time. 6 out of the eleven English batsmen who made it to the crease (obviously) returned back scoring single digit scores.

England's innings got over with close to 15 overs of their game still to go. Scorecard suggests that only Praveen Kumar had an over maiden under his name though other bowlers were no short in tackling their opposition. Umesh Yadav was the most expensive bowler who gave away runs at a rate of 6.40 runs an over which can be forgiven, given India's victory over the trouble torn team and with Umesh Yadav being in his early cricketing days. The first six in the English innings came from the blades of the number 10 batsman - Steven Finn who luckily remained unbeaten.

India deserved to win

After India's one run win against South Africa yesterday at Jaipur, some questions to be answered for team India are: Should India feel happy for making it to the records for the narrowest margin of victory on one dayers, which was the 3^rd time with India being at the delivering and and the 2^nd time with the Proteas being at the receiving end? Should Sreesanth feel happy about his comeback not only to international cricket but also in the match, when at one stage he was found giving away 17 rpo and at the end was the man who can be rather called as the architect of India's 1 run victory?

In the recent past as far as India is concerned, they have faced Sri Lanka, that was followed by a tri series involving Sri Lanka once again & Bangladesh as the third team. Then it is the ongoing one day series against South Africa which was set up by the BCCI to rather challenge the Proteas to strip India of the world number 1 rankings if they could do so. With India having seen enough of Sri Lanka in the past 2 years or so, the next best thing that could be worth looking forward to would have been nothing but the series against South Africa.

And, with the result of the 1^st one dayer well in front of us, the caliber what India enjoys in today's cricket can well be guessed. It was indeed a good toss that was won by Graeme Smith and a good call as well when he put the Indians into bat first. Chasing a decent total would not have been tough had the top and middle order South African batsmen kept up to the asking rate. If not for Sachin Tendulkar, all Indian batsmen players who took to the crease came out scoring double figures. Of course, Sreesanth didn't but, Sreesanth never took to the batting crease.

Nothing could be as worse as getting belted on their own pitch in front of their own people especially when the expectations from the crowd is enormous. And India were fortunate to win the match despite some late blastings from Parnell and Steyn. A little bit of contribution, which need not have been necessarily been more than 2 runs from de Villiers, Petersen and Morkel (who scored single digit scores being known batsmen) could have seen South Africa through. A number 10 batsman in Steyn was the batsman who hit the maximum number of sixes in the match. But still, I say that India did deserve to win the match by no matter what the margin was.

I Blame it completely on the bowlers

Well a day after team India's loss at the hands of Sri Lanka, the Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni makes no delay in starting the blame game by terming all batsmen to be responsible for team India's yet another loss in the finals of a tournament involving three nations or more. My doubt is "Does Dhoni include himself in the list of the batsmen whom he refers to as culprits?" Oh! I had forgotten. Mahendra Singh Dhoni is a wicketkeeper isn't it? And why should one refer to him as a batsman which is his secondary commitment. May be he has even bowled a few overs in international cricket.

But, that should not be the issue now. May be that Dhoni considers his 19 ball 14 runs that included three hits to the fence an effort worth mentioning in India's face saving 245 runs on the board. Anyway, that apart, a close look at the scorecard of India's batting line up would reveal that the batting did live upto the mark. Not only for the contributions of Suresh Raina, Ravindra Jadeja and Virender Sehwag whose names get highlighted in the scorecard, but, had it not been for these three, a total of 245 that saved the face for India would be a dream far to relish.

A total of 245 was never easy to chase atleast as far as the Sri Lankan batsmen are considered and more so in today's world where in the last four tournaments, Sri Lanka have managed just one win from each tournament. Sri Lanka took their innings until 9 balls prior to completion of 50 overs with the loss of 6 wickets. None of the batsmen who made it to the crease were found being able to strike the ball confidently. Though there was a wicket falling even before the first runs were scored, India could not continue doing that for another one hour or so. A look at the Indian bowling chart reveals Sreesanth's 72 run gift that should have been more than hundred had the Sri Lankan batsmen been a little more consistent.

Sreesanth gave width outside the off stump in such a way that even the South African bowler Allan Donald would have had the batting innings of his life. Then comes the short pitched, over pitched and full tosses that could have been thrown away by someone with a little better caliber. Bad luck that Ashish Nehra had to leave his journey after bowling just 1.2 overs. And I suggest that one goes through the bowling chart thoroughly so that an idea regarding the Indian bowlers can be got. Dhoni had to rely on someone like Yuvraj Singh, Virat Kohli and Ravindra Jadeja who bowled 17.4 overs between them. Had I ben in place of Dhoni, I wouldn't have tossed the ball to Sreesanth who bowled his full quota of 10 (9.3) overs.

I wonder why not did Dhoni hand over the ball to Sehwag and Raina when Yuvraj could bowl! The change in bowling has always been found to slow down the scoring initially. Atleast these were better than Virat Kohli. I wish Dhoni stand in front of the mirror and shower curses so that the stupidity is not repeated atleast in the near future.