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.
Watch the full highlights of India vs England 1st ODI. Yuvraj smashed an unbeaten century. Sehwag and Gambhir got India to a flying start. Then Zaheer and Munaf bowled a terrific opening spell to get 4 England wickets before they could score 50. Hugely convincing and a completely one-sided game.
A lot of so-called “neutral observers” have mentioned that India’s reaction to the SCG test has been way over the top, the BCCI are bullies, the Indian players are hypocrites, Harbhajan Singh is a racist, the burning of effigies is a barbaric act. I could go on and on.
All the above comments/theories are not going to make matters any easy, they are going to further enrage a nation that is already on the brink of pulling out of the tour. Let me point something out before I start shredding these statements apart. First and foremost, cricket is not a passion in India, it is a religion in its most literal term. The psyche of an Indian fan is that their players are like gods that are battling it out with the rest of the world. So what if they lose. Hey the English only won the Soccer World Cup once, and yet over there soccer is the same as what cricket is in India. What about Aussie rules football. Who really knows about this sport besides the Australians. And yet it overtakes cricket or any other sport in popularity. Oh, and don’t even get me started talking about the crowd/players behavior during a Carlton-Collingwood match.
Cricket is not a contact sport, but the way sledging and intimidation is going on, it may very well become. How much crap can a person take before he gives it back. The Indian players are not like bowling pins that every Tom, Dick and Harry comes and knocks them over. This isn’t India under Mahatma Gandhi that believes in non-violence as the key. This is a young and aggressive India who knows its history of being oppressed by foreigners. So why should they be intimidated by a team that has a known history of insulting, abusing and discriminating its opponents.
Who will be the leading run scorer in the ODI series between India and England? Select 2 choices.
Sachin Tendulkar (62%, 573 Votes)
Ian Bell (20%, 186 Votes)
Saurav Ganguly (17%, 155 Votes)
Kevin Pieterson (15%, 135 Votes)
Yuvraj Singh (12%, 108 Votes)
Rahul Dravid (11%, 97 Votes)
Mahendra Dhoni (7%, 64 Votes)
Paul Collingwood (7%, 60 Votes)
Matt Prior (0%, 3 Votes)
Total Voters: 918
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As was expected, Sachin Tendulkar occupies number one spot in the poll with a comprehensive margin, and had it not been for some poor and ridiculous umpiring decisions in the series, he would have really been the top scorer in the ODI series. Not that Ian Bell played bad and rightly justifies his second spot. In the poll he really made a move after the 5th ODI. At that point Ian Bell was hovering at 7th spot.
What a match! Nerve-wracking right till the last over. Frustrating and joyful at the same time if you are an Indian fan. I, for one, did not believe that India would go an and win after being down 5 wickets and still requiring 83 runs from 58 balls. But the youth brigade held on to their nerves and in a cool, icy, tone won the match for India which they never should have won after conceding 30 runs off the last over with five consecutive sixes. Yes, you heard me correct, if you did not watch England’s innings you have missed out on something spectacular. Dimitry Mascerenhas smashed Yuvraj Singh for 5 straight sixes in the 50th over of the English innings. More on that later.
Paul Collingwood won the toss for the second time in a row and this time he decided to bat first on a flat surface that was going to help the spinners in the second innings. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise for Dravid and his men. Zaheer Khan was charged up and got one to move just enough for the ball to get the outside edge of Alastair Cook. England were 0-1. India could sense that if they snag a couple more wickets early on, they could put England on the backfoot.
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