WALK IN THE PARK FOR HOSTS, INDIA AND SOUTH AFRICA

SRI LANKA made it easy for RSA

Sri Lanka surprised themselves with all the changes that they made, thinking that they had surprise in store for RSA. Kusala Perera was brought in to attack at the top, so that Dilshan could play calm. Thirimane was pushed down to bat at number four, so that Sangakkara could play calm, a new Muralidharan disciple was brought in to the team to strengthen the spin department as Rangana Herath missed out the match due to Injury. All these changes only back fired, as RSA kept the pressure on by taking regular wickets at one end and at the other end stood Sangakkara helpless.

Probably Sangakkara added to their sufferings, by not rotating the strike enough. But clearly, they did not have a plan B out in the middle, when things were going wrong. 102 for 4 and then a Hat-trick dented them so bad. Surprisingly, J P Duminy was the bowler who got a World cup Hat-trick and Imran Tahir kept on chipping with wickets with his Short deliveries and the ones that did not turn. Jayawardene pulled one into the hands of Mid wicket fielder and Sangakkara was left to fight a loosing battle in his last ODI for his country.

133 was too easy and De Kock came to form and remained not out, taking the team to the Semi finals. Sri Lanka lost the match because of their strategies and RSA's fielding efforts. The catch to dismiss Dilshan by Faf du Plessis was one of the best in slip cordon and De Kock's catch to dismiss Kusala Perera was scintillating one handed dive from the wicket keeper. A surprising one sided game.

Rohit Sharma Stepped up at the Right time

Rohit Sharma is playing in his first world cup and his innings against Bangladesh told everyone why he would like to make this world cup special for himself and Indian team. There was pressure when Shikhar Dhawan and Kohli got out in span of 5 deliveries. Rubel Hossain was spitting fire and Shakib ul Hassan and other Bangladeshi bowlers were not allowing Indians to get away. Much to everyone's surprise, Rohit Sharma was calm and collective and allowed the good deliveries to pass and rotated the strike brilliantly.

Suresh Raina is a gifted talent, who plays the role of risk taker to help his Partners craft a match winning knock. Against Pakistan, he ensured that Kohli was calm and against Bangladesh, he ensured that Rohit Sharma focused on the big hundred. Raina ensured that he was there to celebrate Rohit's hundred just like the way he celebrated Kohli's hundred against Pakistan. Indian team is the only team in this world cup, which executes the roles assigned to each individual in a perfect manner, on a consistent basis. It was Rahane and Dhawan against RSA and all these 3 important partnerships routes to the Left-Right combination in the middle, a theory that is so close to Dhoni's heart. Another example was Raina and Dhoni's partnership during the run chase against Zimbabwe.

Rohit Sharma's onslaught at the death overs was a treat to watch, as he would play those big shots with such cricketing precision, one would stand up and applaud. His uppish extra cover drive off a slower ball from Taskin turned out to be the shot of the match, as for the viewers there was a skip in their heart beat, but Rohit alone knew that he bisected the fielders. Dhoni knew the calibre of Rohit Sharma and he kept on taking singles and provided the strike to Rohit in the end overs. Ravindra Jadeja also accelerated at the right time to take the score past 300 yet again. Bowlers did the job and ensured that 70 wickets were taken by the end of 7 matches. 

The Fluke catch of Dhoni, as he says so and a juggler from Shikhar Dhawan at the boundary line were special fielding effort from Indian team. Undoubtedly, it was a 2nd one-sided match in succession.

Pakistan faced Reality

Thanks to the South African team during their encounter with Pakistan in Pool B match, Pakistan lived a dream, as if to believe that they can re-create the magic of 1992. Harsh reality was that Pakistan Batting unit never flourished through out the tournament and their fielding was one of the Worst units. Australians had a nice catching practice session from Pakistan's first innings. Pakistan tested Australia's slip cordon, boundary liners and other fielders at different fielding positions and prepared them well for their semi final clash against Indians. They posted 213 and somehow their body language was positive, God knows why ?

Answer was Wahab Riaz. A big thanks to him, as he bowled a hostile spell of 9 overs, took 2 wickets and made it so tough for Aussies, the audience got to see some fight from other end too. Pakistan fielding effort should be laughed at, as they dropped two catches of his bowling, one that could have dismissed Watson and the other that could have consumed Maxwell. Funny that these two bastmen saw Aussies home. Steve Smith played a flawless innings, which also helped Australians to build decent partnerships at crucial juncture of the run chase.

The Highlight of the match was the spell from Wahab Riaz and stupid batting display by Pakistanis, who projected wrongly that 250 was all required for the win.

An Easy outing for New Zealand

One could say that, West Indies made a match out of nothing, as they played aggressively to chase down 394 posted by New Zealand. But, the pressure of a knock out game was enough for any team to crumble and West Indies are no exception to that. Martin Guptill played one of the best ODI innings, when he saw himself bat through all the 50 overs and scored 237, the highest Individual score in a world cup. Ross Taylor stitched a nice partnership with Guptill after the two reliant batsmen in form of Brendon Macullum and Kane Williamson walked back to the Pavilion for cheap scores. If one of the top order batsmen gets a big hundred like the way Guptill did, more often than not, the team would win.

But, West Indies replied to that in full throttle mode and a match winning catch from Daniel Vettori to dismiss Samuels was the turning point of the game. Marlon Samuels and Chris Gayle was attacking Tim Southee all around the ground, way beyond the boundary lines. Trent Bolt was silently picking wickets at the other end and Macullum made him complete his 10 over spell on trot. Vettori was hammered by Gayle too, but he came back in his 2nd spell to pick 2 crucial wickets to take the team through to Semi finals.

One felt that West Indies could have planned their chase better, considering the fact that Pitch had no demons and small boundaries were ideal ploy for West Indies' giant strikers of the cricket ball. Every one played in the same attacking mode and made it easy for Brendon Macullum, as he was only thinking of 10 good balls for his team. May be Jason Holder could have promoted himself up the order to support Chris Gayle. But then, strong team prevailed over the weaker one and New Zealand set the date with South Africans for a semi-final clash.

World cup 2015 Semi finals is undoubtedly a clash of the Champions and the current top 4 teams in the ODI format would clash with each other to lift the trophy.