India – England match re-ignited the spirit of World cup cricket and Tie result definitely brought smiles to everyone’s face. Obviously we would put a question, ‘Who would walk happy at the end of the match?’ and I know for sure, it’s not the captain of either side. Every Indian fan would mention that our bowlers have not backed up brilliant batting display of Sachin. But then, England tail-enders definitely tried hard to back up Strauss’ masterpiece effort. Let’s take out the power play 3 in both the innings and look at this match. We will find the bat dominating the ball to such an extent; even the lead bowlers in both the teams were clueless to stop the run flow. Anderson and Swann for England looked ordinary and same is the case with Zaheer and Harbhajan for India. I am not discounting the fact that Sachin and Strauss played a classy innings. If Sachin’s innings was chanceless, Strauss’ innings was priceless, as he did it while chasing 339.

Power play 3 was the factor that made the match a nail biter. If Bresnan’s spell ensured that England had to chase 20 runs less than what would India have posted originally, Zaheer’s spell in 3rd Power play pushed England to chase down the target only in the 50th over. As our captain rightly pointed out in the post match interview that England would have finished the match by 48th over. Dhoni had a plan for 3rd power play, which is to bowl his lead bowlers and pick up wickets so that it would be hard for new batsmen to strike good as soon as they step in. It paid rich dividends, as Zaheer picked up Bell and Strauss in successive deliveries and Collingwood in next over. Harbhajan did his part when he picked up Matt prior who was made to slog, as run rate was climbing high. It would be harsh on Chawla if we attribute the tie result to his lapse with the ball in his last over. It’s his first world cup match and he will mature.

UDRS threw a surprise in the match for the viewers, as Ian Bell was given not out LBW by the third umpire stating that he had advanced 2.5 meters down the pitch and technology’s prediction was not conclusive. My argument against the ‘2.5 meter’ would be that it should be considered situation specific. If only a fast bowler had bowled such a delivery, going by the logic that fast bowlers extract more bounce than slow bowlers, there could be doubts where in the benefit of doubt should go to the batsmen. But if it’s a slow bowler, then it can be considered otherwise. I am no way including misbehaving wickets like Delhi Ferozshah Kotla. If only UDRS is brought in to make the correct decision; it did not work wonders there. Of course, technology alone did not play spoil sport against us, our fielding added to the woes. Kohli dropped a tough chance, but then chances that come our way do need to be cashed in.

Our Batting is going from strength to strength and Dhoni would be glad that Yuvraj is amongst the runs too. Sachin was simply outstanding, as he built the innings, giving the bowlers due respect in initial overs. It all started when Collingwood came into the attack to slip in few run saving overs. But then real intention was to provide split of 10 overs, suppose if one of Strauss’ five bowlers leaked runs. Sachin counter-attacked Collingwood and sent a message to Strauss that he has to compulsorily rely on five bowlers picked for the match. Luckily for Strauss, Bresnan came up with one of the best performance of English fast bowler in a world cup 5-48. Yardy bowled well, especially in the death overs along with Bresnan. Anderson had a bad day at the office. Sachin reserves his best for the world cup matches and it was one of special innings from Maestro. Gambhir is consistent and that’s good news.

Kevin Pietersen started the innings with audacity. He was dancing down to our fast bowling duo and attacked from the word go. Strauss was provided the option to play second fiddle to Pietersen. But then he chose his own way of pacing the innings. A boundary in each over and rotating the strike for remaining, was fantastic to watch. Kevin Pietersen was shocked to find Munaf holding onto the catch to one of his fierce straight drive and hardly he knew that Munaf himself was shocked. Jokes apart, it was a fantastic reflex catch from Munaf. Trott looked good but then Piyush got through his defense. Bell and Strauss partnership would have won the match for England, but for 3rd Power play. Both the captains were not happy with the tie, as they had chances to be on the winning side.

India has to provide chance for Nehra and Ashwin to build a perfect bowling mix before Quarter final match. Dhoni made open statement that India fielding can’t improve much, as we have too many slow fielders in our squad and we have the talent in our bowling unit to come up with better performance. He is definitely a captain who knows the limitation of his team, but focuses his mind to work heavily on the positives. Probably Luck also favours this guy for the same reason.

At this point, Indian batting unit is tremendously strong, but it would be helpful if we chase down few targets in forthcoming matches before elimination stage, just so that we are prepared to face two edged sword. Ideally, it should happen against big teams, say South Africa or West Indies or both matches.

Go India Go,

Regards,
Prashy.