For the first time ever terror has really struck at the heart of cricket when a group of fanatical and highly trained terrorists ran on a rampage in the financial capital of India. Mumbai was left bleeding yesterday and all agree that things are never going to be the same again. Reports confirm that almost 125 people have lost their lives to this completely barbaric and senseless act from these sick bastards.
How does this affect cricket? After what happened yesterday, westerners will be hesitant to travel to the country for some time. Its not that India has not witnessed terror attacks before, but the scale and magnitude of yesterdays attack has left everyone shell-shocked.
England’s remaining ODI tour has been the first casualty, followed by the inaugural Champions League. The 2 ODIs have been cancelled with the fate of the test series to be decided by the ECB soon. Lalit Modi announced that the Champions League has been postponed until early next year. Cricket Australia has advised all its players not to travel to India, but that is to be expected. Most of the visiting players were going to stay at the Taj or the Oberoi where terrorists took hostages, and which have seen the bloodiest seige in the history of the country.
5 in a row. England have no idea what’s going on at the moment as the Indian juggernaut rolls on. Viru get a second man of the match award for a blistering 91 runs. Kevin Pieterson gets a 111 not out, yet sees his team suffer their 5th consecutive defeat. India rested Munaf Patel and Gautam Gambhir, with Irfan Pathan and Rohit Sharma playing. England also made 2 changes, with Ian Bell and James Anderson replaced by Alastair Cook and Steve Harmison.
Owais Shah helped himself to an unbeaten 66 and along with skipper Pieterson, ensured England had a competitive total to defend. However, Sehwag had other plans and when he is in the kind of form that he is in at the moment, any total is chaseable. Tendulkar started slowly but quickly got to his 90th half-century at almost a run a ball. Three quick wickets fell for India but 50s to Dhoni and Raina ensured India finished with more than 6 overs to spare.
India complete a comprehensive series win by taking an unassailable 4-0 lead. The team led by Mahendra Singh Dhoni are looking like the team to beat in all forms of international cricket. The match was a reduced over match with each side facing 22 overs. In hindsight, the umpires should just have made it a Twenty20 match.
England were today undone by Virender Sehwag with the bat and Zaheer Khan with the bowl. Ishant and Munaf bowled terrific as well. Although the partnership between Owais Shah and Andrew “Freddie” Flintoff almost took the match away.
Virender Sehwag was given man of the match award for his stand and deliver stuff. He mentioned that his previous IPL match of 40 odd from 17 balls gave him the confidence to go after Flintoff and co.
India make it 3 in a row all thanks to Duckworth/Lewis system. England batted first and scored 240 all out. Ravi Bopara was the top scorer with 60. For India Harbhajan Singh took 3 wickets and 2 each to Ishant and Munaf. India scored 198/5 from 40 overs before bad light stopped play. India were ahead as per the D/L caluclation and won the match by 16 runs. Virender Sehwag was the top scorer for India. Man of the match awarded to Harbhajan Singh.
Kris Srikkanth has given him his vote of confidence. T20 World Cup saw him smack 6×6. Dada, as a term, is used variedly in India. For the Bengalis it means elder brother. In Indian slang it means a gangster. In the Hindi language, Dada is a grandfather.
For England, after Rajkot and Indore, he is all of the above. Yuvraj Singh is officially England cricket team’s Dada (gangsta/grand-daddy). He won India the Natwest Trophy once. He won India a crucial match in the Twenty20 World Cup. Put one Yuvi against 11 English players, and they would still end up losing miserably. OK, maybe I exaggerated a bit. But on current events you can’t blame me.
ODI 1. Yuvraj smashes 138 not out from only 78 balls.
ODI 2. Yuvraj smashes 118 from 122 balls and then takes 4 for 28 from 10 overs.
2 matches. 2 centuries. 2 man of the match awards. As the old Indian saying goes “Bhagwan deta hai to chhapad phad ke deta hai“. Ie: When God gives he gives in bucket loads.
Is he the new Dada? I will leave that for you to decide.
On Laxman and Tendulkar’s knocks in Sydney, “It was like holding a Rolex watch and a Patek Phillipe watch and saying which one looks best” — Andrew Symonds
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