Cricket Blog

The battle of the top two teams in the league. Delhi were victorious in a comprehensive 8 wicket win. Sehwag was in his devastating best as he thrashed the bowlers all over the ground. Gambhir went on to become the leading run scorer in the league with Sehwag now second. Terrific bowling from the visitors helped restrict the home team to a competetive 169. It was always going to be difficult if either Sehwag or Gambhir got going. Unfortunately for the Super Kings, both of them did get going.

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Image Source: Cricinfo.com

India stormed into the semi-finals with a comprehensive 37 run win over the hosts. This would be an utter shock to South African fans as the had been cruising so far until they hit a road-block in the name of India. Rohit Sharma and RP Singh were the stars for this Indian win.

All did not start well for India. Yuvraj Singh, the star yesterday, withdrew from the match due to tendonitis of the left elbow. This ensured that Rohit Sharma would get a look in. Boy did he make full use of this chance. India won the toss and once again Mahi decided to bat first. In all three occasions that India have batted first, they have won the match, so this was the most logical choice. However, things were not as rosy as 24 hours ago. The Indian top order struggled and all of a sudden they were 33-3 and when Uthappa departed the score read 61-4.

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South Africa continued their unbeaten run in the Twenty20 World Cup with a comfortable 19 run win over England. This is England’s second straight defeat in the tournament and all is not well at the moment. After winning the toss, Collingwood had no hesitation to put South Africa in. At 42-3, it seemed that his decision would be proven right.

Still, this being a twenty over match, unless you pick up half the team for under 50 runs, the batting side always has a big chance of posting a big enough total. This is exactly what happened here. Albie Morkel, Shaun Pollock and Justin Kemp played their part in ensuring that the South Africans reached a decent 154-8 in their allotted 20 overs. James Anderson and Andrew Flintoff were the most economical bowlers for England. Jimmy finished with 4-0-22-1 and Freddie had figures of 4-0-23-2. Stuart Broad was expensive as he went for 37 runs from his quota of 4 overs, however he was also the most successful picking up 3 wickets.

Cricket is a funny game, and Twenty20 seems to be even more comic. 155 should have been reached easily. Hell, we saw the South Africans chase in excess of 200 runs in the opening match. Yet, it seems England, despite being the country that gave birth to Twenty20, does not seem to get a correct combination when competing with international teams. What they should do is send their county Twenty20 winners to play in these tournaments.

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South Africa defeated Sri Lanka by a comfortable 7 wickets and 7 balls to spare. Number 7 was also lucky for the Sri Lankans in their win over the Kiwis. South Africa won the toss and elected to field first, again. The Bangladeshis did not start of well and were in all sorts of trouble at 34-3 with the skipper, Mohammad Ashraful, gone for only 10 runs that already included 1 four and 1 six.

The Proteas kept the pressure up and wickets continued to fall, however, 144 runs were scored in the end. Pollock was the most successful and expensive bowlers. His 3.3 overs cost 40 runs and he picked up 3 wickets. Ntini also went for quite a few - 31 runs from 2 overs. The best bowler was JJ van der Wath who gave away a measly 13 runs from 4 overs and got a wicket. Aftab Ahmad was the top scorer for Bangladesh, smashing 36 runs from only 14 balls with 5 fours and 2 sixes.

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