Published by Nanda on 1st December 2007
So it finally happened. A jam packed stadium with some dazzling performances by Kareena Kapoor and even Laloo Prasad Yadav, the Minister of Railways, came in to say a few encouraging words. The first match was between Chandigarh Lions and Delhi Jets. The Lions won the series opener by 8 runs. In a closely fought contest the Chandigarh side held onto its nerve to defend a smallish total of 134 runs. Darrel Tuffey was given the man of the match award for his 3 wickets and tight bowling.
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Published by Nanda on 8th November 2007
Filed Under
India, Pakistan
Yet another India-Pakistan match, yet another thrilling finish. This has been a trend that goes for over 50 years. Nothing, I repeat, nothing can compare to an India vs Pakistan match. Chasing 322 for a victory, I would say Pakistan bounced back in spectacular fashion.Dhoni won the toss and decided to bat first on a pitch that was going to assist the pace bowlers early on. Ganguly showed his intentions as he square cut Shoaib Akhtar to the boundary off the second ball of the innings. However that was short-lived as Shoaib had the last laugh in this short battle. Ganguly inside-edged to his stumps and India were 6-1. Not the start the wanted but what followed was arguably India’s best partnership of the day. Gautam Gambhir joined Sachin and the two smashed the bowling to pulp in a calculated run of play. Sachin batted like only he can. In fact, Gambhir was the slower of the two.
The run rate picked up from the 9th over when Umar Gul was spanked to all parts of the park. To Gul’s credit he came back strongly in a match defining spell later on. Sachin was at his dominant best. And since the England series, he has really made an effort to play like he has always had, without any extra burden of captaincy, or trying to anchor the innings. He knows that with the likes of Dhoni, Yuvraj and Uthappa in the middle order, he can play his natural game. And play he did. Shoaib tried to make fun of Sachin early on, but the little master let his bat do the talking.
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Published by Nanda on 29th October 2007
India Blue won the final match comprehensively beating India Red by 6 wickets, thanks to a sensational century by ODI discard Dinesh Karthik. Chasing 269, the Blues reached their target with 54 balls to spare. Gautam Gambhir made his presence felt with an 82 in 77 balls and was the only spark for India Red whose batsmen struggled for the entire part of their innings. Suresh Raina was given the player of the series award for his consistent batting performance - he scored 3 fifties in all 3 matches. Dinesh Karthik was given the player of the match award.
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Match Highlights
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Published by Nanda on 27th October 2007
South Africa won the fourth match by 7 wickets to level the series 2-2. Winning the toss and deciding to bat first, Pakistan never got going with Afridi failing yet again at the top of the order. He went back without scoring. A fighting 82 from Younis Khan and decent contributions from Shoaib Malik, Kamran Akmal and Abdur Rehman ensured that Pakistan managed to reach a decent total.
South Africa, however, were clinical in their run chase. Graeme Smith ensured that South Africa got off to a good start and then he had a match-winning partnership with Shaun Pollock who was also very good with the ball earlier on. Both the batsmen made sure that the required run rate would not get out of control and actually ended the match with South Africa scoring at over a run a ball. The series now heads on to Lahore for the fifth and final match which is also going to be the decider in this closely fought series.
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Published by Nanda on 26th October 2007
I haven’t covered this tournament as it really is a waste of time with no real sense of which players are good enough to be selected for the Indian squad. You cannot decide an international team based on only a couple of matches. The tournament has not been planned properly with only one game against each other and the final. As it stands after yesterday’s match, India Red are in the final thanks to a bonus point.
In the first match, India Blue were led to victory by a solid innings from Suresh Raina who has vowed to come back into the Indian team. And why not, the bloke has all the right ingredients to play a big part in the future of Indian cricket. The match really should have belonged to Virender Sehwag who was the captain and is also looking to make a comeback into Team India. However, quite unsurprisingly, he managed to goof up this chance again. So did Dinesh Karthik. He continues to get out on the Big O in the shorter format of the game and the selectors would really be thinking if we need Dinesh Karthik as a second wicket-keeper in the squad with Parthiv Patel being a much better batsman.
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