South Africa choked India after Sachin, Sehwag and Gambhir’s brilliance.

Batting Brilliance followed by batting disaster ensured a South African win. We can always pinpoint Ashish Nehra’s last over, Munaf patel’s 14 run over (his 10th), Zaheer’s 15 run over (his 9th) as reasons for losing the match. But ideally we lost the match in our first innings itself, when we lost 9 wickets scoring 29 runs only, after scoring 267 for 1 at the end of 40 overs. The top order batted like a dream and Middle & Lower order batted like a nightmare. Sehwag and Gambhir missed out on their Individual tons too, as they both had a good chance of achieving that. How at the end of the match, one wished either Gambhir or Sehwag to achieve that feet, because that alone would have made sure that we consume all 50 overs.

Dhoni has slammed in press conference that, batsmen should stop playing cricket for the crowd, as it’s not about scoring sixes and four without getting their eye in. Also South Africans have Dale Steyn, who specifically was brought in to disrupt the run flow. Even Greame Smith would have been taken aback when he looked at the batting collapse of Indians. I guess Dhoni and Gary Kirsten have to re think strategies on when to pick the third power play, as time and again, it’s leading us into a scenario of merely losing wickets without any runs added. At least, the approach of batsmen during the same should undergo a change, if they stick to the same formula. Or Sachin should be a silent partner in the 3rd power play rather than playing aggressor role.

Coming to blistering start provided by Sachin and Sehwag, it was a treat to the eye when Sachin hooked Dale Steyn over deep square leg boundary for a six. Sehwag was simply outstanding with his fierce cuts, Cover drives on the up, and Straight drives off Morkel. Whatever fear that South Africans had in connection with a rollicking start from Sachin and Sehwag’s bat, it all came true and none of their plans seemed to work. Even the South Africans in the crowd stood and applauded as Sachin and Viru matched or bettered shot for shot.

Gambhir was classy yet again with his over extra cover shots for spinners. The way in which he paced his innings spoke volumes of the form he is in. Just when he tried to hit the accelerator button, he lost his wicket and that was closed door for Indians. It was so disheartening to see the lower order trying to smash the likes of Steyn and Morkel, but all they had to do was play run a ball and ensure that our score reaches 310 to 320. Dhoni was at the other end, watching the irresponsible men walk in and walk out.

When we started to Bowl, Dhoni awaited Zaheer’s magic against Smith. It got delayed, as Zaheer has to bowl five overs in the spell to achieve that. Ashish Nehra started well with Zaheer, but then he consistently provided two consecutive boundary balls at various stages. Munaf, the fastest spinner in the playing eleven, kept batsmen tight but for his last over, where service was required the most. Harbhajan was the pick of the bowler, but he could have gone and snatched the ball from Dhoni to complete his spell and sent a message to Robin Petersen as to who the boss was. At this time, I remember Sachin snatching the ball from Azharrudin in the famous Hero cup and bowled the historical last over.

The batting collapse and mediocre bowling performance of Munaf & Nehra cost us the match. Fielding cannot remain as an excuse, as the elimination stage is fast approaching and players have to raise bars to hit the finishing line as a team. It was one bad day at office with respect to batting and we should not repeat the mistake.

To end this post on a high, Will Zaheer, Bhajji, Sreesanth and Ashwin make the winning combination for us in the remaining part of the tournament?

Regards,
Prashy.