Boxing Day Test - WI vs Aus 2015

This morning Australia, after reaching a score of 180/3, declared their innings and sent West Indies to bat.  The Australians could have batted a lot longer and scored more runs than they did. The pitch stayed good for batting till the end of the Test Match. 

When West Indies came to bat, all the top six batsmen got starts, however none of them went on to get a hundred or even a 80+ score,in batting too captain Holder had to step up. He batted aggressively, played positive cricket and scored a good 68 of 86 balls. He was aptly assisted by wicketkeeper Ramdin who scored 59.

The Ramdin-Holder partnership contributed a hundred runs to the total. This time however the tail did not wag unlike the first innings. However one can't help thinking that, if the top 5 batsmen had had some decent partnerships or if one or two of the top order batsmen had gone on to make a century, West Indies could have come closer to the score of Australia. In fact they might well have beaten Australia because the pitch was excellent to bat on. 

It would have been interesting to see if Steve Smith would have made such a courageous declaration against a team like South Africa, India or England. Unfortunately West Indies has the talent but the talented players are just not playing the game. Where are the likes of Chris Gayle, Kieron Pollard, Andre Russel, Dwayne Bravo, Dwayne Smith etc. 

The West Indian selectors should be blamed for not picking the best 11. The selectors are just happy to see their Team lose. Although the popularity of cricket in West Indies has come down as compared to the 70s, even now they have enough quality players to create a very powerful cricket team.

For cricket, a strong West Indian side is very important. For decades West Indies cricketers have mesmerised cricket fans across the world. One can just hope that Jerome Taylor and Kemar Roach bowl better in the New Year Test match. The cricket loving fans across the world will love to see this West Indies beat Australia in Australia.

Better performance by West Indies in MCG Test.

This Morning West Indies played far better than what they did yesterday. The lower order batsmen of the Windies showed the regular batsmen how they should have batted. The last four West Indian batsmen added 188 runs to the total. Darren Bravo played way better today, he went on to score 81 and was the last man out. 

Debutant Carlos Brathwaite went on to compile a good 59 runs of 126 balls. The Birthwaite- Bravo partnership contributed 90 runs to the total. The next batsmen Roach , Taylor and Warrican contributed 22,15 and 11 runs respectively. West Indies reached a total of 271, had the upper order of the West Indian batting applied themselves like the lower order. The Windies could have reached 450+ runs. 

There was really no devil in the wicket it is a good wicket to bat on. The Aussies did not enforce the follow on inspite of having a 280 run lead. The Australians came back to bat in 32 overs they scored 179 runs for the loss of 3 wickets. 

The two West Indian strike bowlers Taylor and Roach were ineffective and went for quite a few runs. The wicket takers were captain Holder and debutant Brathwaite. Left arm spinner Warrican was not able to make any impact at all. Usman Khwaja hit a half century and captain Steve Smith who is in the form of his life hit another half century and he is currently batting at 70. It is very likely that he may get another century tomorrow. 

If the weather does not play spoilsport then another Aussie victory looks inevitable. However since Cricket is a game of glorious uncertainties anything can happen. West Indies will have to bat out of their skins to draw this Test Match. 

West Indies at MCG

West Indies, the cricket team that was once feared by all teams across the world, today is nowhere near its original glory. In the recent boxing day test math played at MCG, the West Indian bowling was so weak that it can take only 3 Australian wickets in one and half days. In 135 overs the Aussies easily scored 551. 

The West Indian bowling looked toothless. Jerome Taylor picket up two wickets, but the other fast bowler Kemar Roach, who is coming back after a soldier injury looked quite ineffective. He was down on pace and the Aussie batters were able to score of him pretty easily.

The only batsmen who missed out on the run feast was David Warner, unfortunately he was in too much hurry. All other batsmen helped themselves to century. If the Australians wanted they could have batted much longer and Steve Smith and Voges, who were unbeaten could have helped themselves to double or even triple centuries. However Steve Smith put his team's interest ahead of his own personal records and declared the innings. 

When the West Indians came to ball they started slowly but steadily. Off spinner Nathan Lyon got the first wicket. However after that carnage followed. The old ball started reverse swinging. As I have mentioned in my earlier article, reverse swing is now a major weapon of fast bowlers all around the world. Two beautiful reverse inswinging balls claimed the wickets of Chandrika and Marlon Samuels, on both occasions the bowler was James Pattinson. 

Blackwood was batting well. While on the other end Darren Bravo, who scored a century in the previous test match was stuck, he was not even working the balls in the gaps for singles. The pressue increased on Blackwood, when Nathan Lyon came back to bowl, he came down the track and hit the first ball for a six. However in the same over he tried the same again, this time he was not able to reach to the pitch of the ball and ended up giving an easy catch to Lyon. 

Peter Siddle came to bowl and he bowled one inswing ball to Ramdin's pads, which he flicked straight to the hands of the square leg fielder Joe Burns. West Indies's misfortune continued, their captain Holder was bowled in the next ball, it was a fast reverse swinging yorker. 

In a pitch which is supposed to be a belter West Indies at the end of second day are reeling at 91/6. Although West Indies has talented players, it is just not match to Australia at MCG. 

Evolving cricket skills - Reverse Swing

With time everything changes and improves. This is the law of life, the game of cricket is no exception. With time players have added new skills to their repertoire, to make themselves more and more effective. At times adding new skills has been a necessity for success. Reverse swing, the skill that has changed the art of fast bowling is one of them.

The art of reverse swing was invented by Pakistani fast bowler Sarfaraz Nawaz. He shared the secret with captain Imran Khan. They worked on it and became better at bowling reverse swing. The next generation of bowlers like Wasim Akram, Waqar Yunus, Aquib Javed, Sohaib Akhtar etc were brilliant at bowling reverse swing.

Wasim and Waqar had pace and they formed one of the best fast bowling pairs in the history of the game. All Pakistani bowlers were more lethal with the ball when it was around 30 overs old. That was the time when reverse swing started. The skill of reverse swing played a vital role in Pakistan winning many matches.

Now what is reverse swing and how it is bowled. When the game starts the red cricket ball is new the ball would swing towards the side where the seam of the ball is pointed. But as the game progresses the ball gets older and the swing of the ball reduces.

Swing also depends on weather. In cloudy and cold weather the ball swings more. When there is slight grass on the pitch the ball swings more. However in Pakistan the weather is mostly dry, the outfields were rough. The ball used to get scuffed up early. So the fast bowlers got very little traditional swing.



However it was observed that if one of the side of the ball was kept shiny and if you let the other side become rough naturally, after 30 overs or so. The ball would start deviating towards the shiny side of the ball, when it is bowled with good pace. This swing was very dangerous since it was late swing. It was exactly opposite to traditional swing since in case of traditional swing, the ball swings away from the shiny side, when it is bowled.

Reverse swing stayed for a long period of time as compared to traditional swing. Pakistan's victory in 1992 World Cup can be attributed to reverse swing, at one point of time England were cruising towards the Pakistani total. Wasim Akram came to bowl the ball was a little old and started reverse swinging, one ball swung in and Allan Lamb was clean bowled, the next ball swing the other way and Chris Lewis was clean bowled. England fell short of Pakistani total by 22 runs.

Later on other players from other countries got to know about the secret of reverse swing bowling and they started implementing it as well. India, Sri Lanka have similar conditions as Pakistan. The fast bowlers of this two countries and now excellent at reverse swing bowling. 

Today fast bowlers of all countries are able to ball reverse swing and it has become a major weapon of fast bowlers. The innovation of reverse swing went a long way in developing fast bowling in the Indian sub-continent. Without reverse swing fast bowling would have been played easily by the batsmen, considering the kind of pitches that we have in the subcontinent. 

Many such innovations have happened in the game of cricket. I will write about them in my future posts. 

South Africa's Performance In Recent Test Series Versus India

The best rated team in the world in Test cricket was completely floored in the just concluded Test series in India. South African batsmen had no idea how to counter Indian spin bowling on Indian pitches. In the last test match played in Delhi's Feroz Shah Kotla Stadium, where the pitch was not really a big time turner it seemed that the South African batters had lost the match in their minds even before the started batting. 

While India managed to score 334 runs in the first innings. South Africa struggled to score even 121 runs, they scored  6 runs less than what Ajinkya Rahane scored in the first innings. India managed to bat even better in the second innings and reached a score of 267/5 in the second innings, with captain Virat Kohli scoring a nice 88 and Rahane getting his second ton of the Test Match. Setting a difficult total of 481 runs for the Proteas.

The South Africans had more than 160 overs to try and achieve the target. But right from the onset the did not try at all to get the runs they were only focused on blocking the ball. So the game started becoming more and more dull. The first wicket went at 5 in the last ball of the 4th over. The next wicket went at a score of 49 in 42.4 overs. Throughout their entire innings the Proteas maintained a run rate of 1 run an over. Miserably slow by the standards of modern cricket and even in old days this rate of scoring would have been considered extremely boring.

Some of the best batsmen in the world like Hasim Amla and AB De Villiers also batted miserably slow. So slow that they created a world record of the slowest partnership(minimum 200 balls) in the history of the game. Amla and Devilliers partnership was of 27 runs in 41.5 overs. The next partnership between Faf Du Plessis and Devilliers was the second slowest in the history of the game Faf was finally floored by Jadeja, who had an extremely good series with the ball. 

The wicket of JP Duminy was taken quickly by Ashwin, but the Protea wicketkeeper Dane Vilas gave a strong resistance for the next 13 overs. Till tea it seemed like South Africa will manage to save the match but the game completely changed after Tea. Umesh got the wicket of Dane Villas and Ashwin go the wicket of De villiers, yes the same Abraham Bejamin De Villiers who scores at lightning pace scored only 43 runs in 297 balls, some of the boundaries he got were of the outside edge of the bat. 

The next three wickets fell fast and South Africa were all out for 143 runs. It would have been much better for Test Cricket had South Africa been more positive in their approach and scored faster. It would have been better for Test Cricket as well. From a cricket fan's point of view the performance of Hasim Amla and De villers was very disappointing to say the least. 

De villers and Amla did not do justice to the people who came to see them bat, even if South Africa had managed to salvage a draw, the game of cricket would have been the loser. The main problem was not in the pitch but in the minds of the South African batsmen. The horrors of the turning wickets of the previous three matches seems to be haunting their mind. 

There are times when teams do play for a draw. However even in those situations batting is positive and runs are scored at a much faster clip. The South African batsmen were even blocking balls that they could have hit for boundaries. 

Only that cricket team is capable of calling itself the best Test Team in the world which is capable of competing and winning Test Matches in all conditions anywhere in the world. The RSA performance in India proves that the Proteas currently do not deserve the title of the best Test Cricket Team in  the world.   

South Africa's first Three Tests in India.

South Africa came to India with a reputation of being ranked No.1 Test team in the world. Now if a team likes to call itself No. 1, then they should be able to do well in all conditions anywhere in the world. South Africa does have a good batting line up and they also have the best batsman in world cricket today, AB De villiers. Their bowling is very powerful as well, lead by the likes of Dale Steyn, Morne Morkel and young Rabada. They also have a good spin bowler who is more of an import from Pakistan, Imran Tahir, he became South African by marrying a South African national. 

However their batsmen lack one very vital batting skill, playing high quality spin bowling on turning tracks. Most of the South African batsmen are used to playing in India and know the conditions well since most of them play in the IPL for different franchisees. However that has not been enough to improve their batting skills against spin bowling, probably because IPL comprises of T20 cricket which is a different cup of tea as compared to Test Match Cricket. 

So in India the world no.1 Test team got turning tracks in the first 3 test matches that they played. In the first test match they failed to play the spin of R. Ashwin and and Ravindra Jadeja. Remember that Ravindra Jadeja is a batsman who bowls and not the other way round, but on a turning track they were unable to cope with the left arm spin bowling of Jadeja and batted badly in both Innings. India won the match although India's batting was not that great either. 

In the second Banglore Test the entire South African team was out in the first day of the Test match.  Indian's were batting well at the end of the first day. However the weather played spoilsport. It rained for the next 4 days and the match ended in a draw, with Jadeja again picking up 5 wickets. 

In the third test played in Nagpur again in the first innings the Indian team was all out for 215 runs in the first innings. However the South Africans were to give their worst ever batting performance against India, the entire team was all out for a mere 79 runs, gifting India a 136 runs lead. India again did not score a lot of runs in the bowler friendly wicket and was all out for 177 runs.

The South African reply in the last innings of the 3rd Test match was much better however they had no answer to Ashwin's turn as the entire South African Team was all out for 188, thus handing over a comfortable 124 runs victory to India. 

Many people criticized the pitch. However one must realize that it is Test Match Cricket and South Africa simply failed the test against playing spinners on a turning track. In South Africa, India were always given hard, bouncy, swinging wickets and India played better than what South Africa did in India in this series. 

For the last 9 years South Africa had not lost any Test series overseas. India has now ended their streak. 

South Africa vs India 3rd One Day International, Rajkot

The third one day match was played between India and South Africa in the city of Rajkot. The stadium is relatively new and it is only the second one day international that it was hosting. The pitch was expected to be a good batting wicket. 

India lost the toss and AB Devilliers chose to bat first. The visitors went off to an excellent start, in the first 5 overs they amassed 30 runs and their score at the end of 10 overs was 59. In this match big hitter David Miller was sent to open the match, he did a fair job as an opener scoring 33 runs of 41 balls. However the pitch was assisting Harbhajan's spin bowling, so Miller tried to get after his bowling, he came down the track to one of bhajji's offspinner, he was beaten in flight, the ball took the outer edge of his bat and it went flying to the short third man where Rahane took a brilliant diving catch to dismiss him. 

After this Amla came to bat the Indian bowlers did well to contain him he scored only 5 of 15 balls and then ended up getting stumped smartly by Dhoni off the bowling of Amit Mishra. After that Faf du Plessis came into bat , de Cock and du Plessis formed an excellent partnership of 117 runs, in that partnership du Plessis did get caught but on checking with the third umpire it turned out to be a no ball. 

At this point South Africa lost two more wickets in the 40th over and over number 40.1, centurion Clint De Cock was run out and that gagged the scoring rate, in the 49th and the 50th over there were one six each hit by Steyn and Behardin because of which South Africa were able to reach a total of 270. At that point Dhoni would have been more than satisfied with the job done by his bowlers. 

When India batted they managed to keep wicket in hands and were off to a steady start. Dhawan was not in the best of forms and he struggled in his stay at the crease scoring 13 of 29 balls. When he got out the score was 41, Kohli came at number 3, he played an innings in which his rate of scoring was rather slow. India did manage to reach a total of 113 runs in 23overs, at this point India lost the wicket of Rohit Sharma to Dumini's bowling and this turned out to be the turning point of the match. 

Dhoni came in to bat, however at this point India's scoring rate really slowed down. Dhoni and Virat are recognised as two of the best one day batters who score runs briskly but their partnership was very slow which made the job of the following batsmen very very difficult. The partnership was of just a mere 80 runs in 113 balls. After the fall of Dhoni's wicket, Raina came in tried to go after the bowling from the second ball, but ended up giving an easy catch to the long off fielder. Very soon in an attempt to speed up the scoring Virat and Rahane got out in consecutive balls. 

Axar and Harbhajan tried their best, scored briskly. However their scoring rate was not fast enough to to overcome the South African total. Although Axar hit the last ball for a six. India ended up losing the match by 18 runs. 

Such unprofessional batting was not expected of experience players of the calibre of Dhoni and Kohli it is period between 30 th and 40 th over where India scored the runs slowly that India lost the match. Had a few more risks been taken then, India would have managed to surpass South African total. Although India lost 6 wickets, India still had players like Bhuvaneshwar Kumar and Amit Mishra who are capable of batting. 

As an Indian cricket fan it felt very bad to see the team lose the way it did. 

INDIA vs SOUTH AFRICA 1st T20(2nd October)

The T20 match played today between India and South Africa was really exciting. The match was evenly contested one, however South Africa won the match as the rub of the green went their way. 

Today's match was played in evening in the city of Dharmasala. The ground had heavy dew right from the beginning, which made life of the bowlers very difficult. They found gripping the ball very difficult and the Indian batsmen took full advantage, specially Rohit Sharma who is in the form of his life. 

Rohit scored a scintillating 100 of just 62 balls and was aptly supported by Virat Kohli who made a good 43 of 27 balls, but after Rohit's dismissal , South Africa did come back into the match. India were able to amass only 41 runs of the last 5 overs. Between the 10 and 15th overs India added 77 runs to its total thanks to explosive batting of Rohit Sharma. Dhoni hit the last ball of the Indian innings for a six and India ended the innings with a respectable total of 199 runs. 

In reply South Africa were off to a flyer, In the first six overs they were able to amass 67 runs, but then after the run out of Hashim Amla, Ravichandran Ashwin bowled a beauty to get the wicket of A.B. Devilliers. The debutant Srinath Arvind got the wicket of Faf Du Plessis the very next over and India were right on top. 

After that Behardin and Duminy formed a steady partnership, a very close LBW of Duminy was not given by the Umpire of the bowling of Axar Patel. After that Duminy hit Axar for 3 sixes in one over, that changed the course of the match now match was moving in the favour of South Africa.

However the in the first ball of the next over bowled by Bhuvaneshwar Kumar Duminy was clearly out clum lbw. But the decision was given in the favour of the batsman, this was the turning point of the match, after that Duminy simply demolished Indian bowling and managed to get the required two hundred runs for his team with two balls to spare. 

So with some lucky assistance from umpire Vineet Kulkarni, South Africa were able to win the match and go one up in the series. The match was really exciting and a closely fought contest.

Cricket - Allrounders

So you have batsmen and bowlers. While everyone has to bat, the bowlers come down the order since they have lesser ability to bat Although all batsmen don't have to bowl. Now in modern cricket it is important that the lower order batsmen score some runs, sometimes it can be very vital and difference between the win and loss of a match or saving a test match(i.e. draw). 

The advantage of lower order batsmen having some ability with the bat is paramount. Harbhajan Singh once scored and century and saved India from losing a test match against New Zealand. He got the man of the match in that particular match for his batting performance.Had it not been for Harbhajan's and Zaheer's batting ability, India won't have been able to beat Australia in the Chennai Test in 2001 and win the series against them. 

There are many such occasions in cricket where lower order batting has changed the game. So all bowlers take batting seriously this days and rarely today anyone finds a bowler who is not able to bat at all. However across the entire history of world cricket there have been players who are good at both, batting and bowling. They have contributed with the bat and contributed with the ball as well. This band of cricketers are known as allrounders. 

The greatest among all the allrounders is without a doubt the great Sir Garfield Sobers of West Indies. Almost every test playing nation have produced good allrounders. An allrounder gives the team an extra batsman or an extra bowler. 

There are two types of allrounders batting allrounders and bowling allrounders. Players whose batting is their major strength are batting allrounders, they can bowl as well. Bowling allrounders are the ones for whom bowling is the main weapon and they can score runs as well. However most allrounders are in the team for one of the skills. Incase a bowling allrounder is injured and won't be able to bowl, then he would most likely loose his place in the team till he recovers. Since he won't be able to replace any top order batsman to be in the team just to play as a batsman. Same in case of a batting allrounder.

However players like Garfield Sobers, Kapil Dev, Imran Khan, Sir Richardson Hadlee, Ian Botham etc were genuine allrounders. They could have played in the team either as a batsman or as a bowler. Such players are rare. In recent times Chris Crains of New Zealand and Shakib ul Hasan of Bangladesh can be regarded as genuine allrounders since they could have played for their respective national team either as a batsman or as a bowler. 

Such genuine allrounders are very rare and important, a team that has more allrounders have more chances of winning. When India won the 1983 cricket world cup, there were many allrounders in the team. Except Kapil Dev most of them were spin or medium pace bowlers, but their style of bowling suited the English conditions. India was able to beat the then mighty West Indies because of them. Mohinder Amarnath, a medium pacer was the man of the match in the finals. 

However these days due to increase in the number of matches that are being played, we rarely get to see genuine allrounders. One just hopes to see more genuine allrounders in the future, whether bowling or batting they are always exciting to watch and add a lot of value to the game. 

Role Models

In cricket one particular trend is really observable. If youngsters see a particular set of players doing well at a certain discipline of the game, they emulate them. Pakistan traditionally produced lots of fast bowlers. But before Kapil Dev India did not have a very good pace bowler. But after Kapil Dev India got a steady supply of pace bowlers. The youngsters were inspired by Kapil's example and took up pace bowling. Hence in the next decades you had pace bowlers like Srinath, Prasad, Ajit Agarkar, Zaheer Khan, Nehra, RP Singh, Varun Aaron, Umesh Yadav and others.

Anil Kumble initially started off as a medium pacers but he took to leg brake bowling, probably directly or indirectly being influence by the examples of BS Chandrashekhar, one of the greats spinners India ever produced. Kids look up for role models, they try to become like their role models in every discipline.

This is the reason why in tennis we see so many champions coming from countries with low population like Australia and Switzerland. Actually tennis being such a popular sport in these countries, the youngsters emulate their heroes, take up the game and some of them become excellent in that sport.

When it comes to kids role models have a big impact of their psyche. They tend to copy even little movement of their heroes, whether it be chewing a gum, hairstyle, way of talking etc. So its very vital that kids have good role models. Like Sachin Tendulkar and Anil Kumble were great role models. Their on field and off field conduct was excellent and many youngsters emulated them.

Moving outside sports we had our former president and scientist Dr APJ Abdul Kalam who was a wonderful role model. His life itself is an inspiration to millions of youngsters in India and across the world and I am sure looking at his example many students will be encouraged to become scientists and do research in the field of Science and Technology. 

Wimbledon with Martina and Indians

It has been a wonderful Wimbledon for two Indians. Sania Mirza and Leander Paes but in their victories they had someone in common Martina Hingis . So this year till now Martina has won three grandslam titles with an Indian partner. On two occasions it was Leander Paes in mixed doubles of Australian Open and Wimbledon. While yesterday it was Sania Mirza in Wimbledon doubles .

One thing common among all three of them was that they were all teenage prodigies . Hingis a greater champion than the other two in fact Martina Hingis is one of the greatest player to have ever played tennis. Its great to see at the age of 35 she is still winning grand slams and surely many more doubles titles will be won by Martina Hingis.

Leander Paes at an age of 42 is still winning grand slams. He is the oldest male player ever to have won a Grand Slam. 

One Day Cricket - New Rules

ICC has made some changes in rules when it comes to one day cricket in the recent ICC meeting at Barbados. It was being observed that the rules of cricket are too biased towards the batsmen and what people really want is a close contest between the bat and ball. 

Cricket has changed so much over the years. With bats improving these days even miss hits tend to clear boundaries. o ICC has announced that it will look into the size and make of the bats.

The earlier rules that allowed only 4 fielders outside the 30 yard circle made life difficult for the bowlers. Even good balls were going for boundaries, specially during the last 10 overs. So ICC has now taken a decision to allow 5 fielders  outside the 30 yard circle during the last 10 overs.

Again the batting powerplay that allowed only 3 fielders outside the 30 yard circle, this made life hell for the bowlers, even miss hits and edges went for boundaries. So batting powerplay has been scrapped . Now the batting side will only have the advantage of the mandatory powerplay. The mandatory powerplay happens when both the balls are new and provides lot of assistance to the bowlers. 

One more major decision that the ICC took was to have a free hit after every no-ball. Earlier only front foot no balls were awarded free hits, now all kinds of no balls that include full toss over waist height, back foot no ball or a bowler disturbing the bails on the non striking end at the time of bowling would be penalised with a free hit. Since the free hits came into existence the number of no-balls bowled by the bowlers have come down sharply. These days you hardly see any front foot no balls being bowled in T20s or one dayers. 

The major changes in rules for one day cricket are:

1. The requirement of posting two close in fielders within 15 yards of the batsmen during mandatory powerplay has been scrapped.
2. No batting powerplay from now on.
3. All noballs would result the next ball being awarded as a free hit to the batting side.
4. 5 fielders allowed outside the 30 yard circle from overs 41 to 50.

The change in rules will give more teeth to the bowlers and we will see more competitive cricket, although the number of runs that are being scored may come down. 

It would be interesting to see the fans feedback on the matches played under this rules.

Copa America quarterfinal - Argentina vs Colombia

Today I managed to catch up some Copa America quarterfinal action, the match between world cup finalists Argentina and Colombia. 

While Argentina are ranked as the third best side in the world. Colombia is next best ranked team at no 4 according to Fifa rankings. The match was heavily dominated by Argentina creating one after one scoring opportunities. 

However the man who stood between them was the Colombian goalkeeper Ospinia, who made a great double save in the first half and in the second half deflected a header that was going towards the goal to the goalpost. Had it not been for him Colombia would have lost the match in normal time and probably by a huge margin. 

In this tournament the semifinals and quarterfinals have no extra time so as soon as the match ended in a goal less draw in regulation time the extra time started.

With a goalkeeper like Ospinia,Colombia had a fair chance of winning the match. Had everyone,who took the shot on goal had done that properly, Colombia might well have upset Argentina.

However some of its players were unable to take the pressure of the situation and ended up kicking the ball away from the goalpost by quite a distance. Even the Argentine players on two occasions kicked the ball away from goalpost during penalty shootouts. The Argentine goalkeeper was able to save one of the penalties and Tavez hit the winning shot to send Argentina to the semi-finals.

Argentina dominated the entire match but it was Ospinia's brilliance that denied them a goal. This shows how relatively lesser rank team with an excellent goalkeeper can frustrate and even beat an opposition. Colombia did create a scoring opportunity in the 2nd half but the shot directly went into the goalkeeper's hand. 

Now that Argentina are in the semis , the other quarter final that would be played between Brazil and Paraguay tonight will determine their opponents in the semi-final match. Most people in the world would want Brazil to win , because it would be great to see a Brazil - Argentina semifinal. 

The Brazil vs Paraguay match promises to be an exciting match even though Neymar will not be playing because of suspension. The match is scheduled at 9:15 pm GMT. I am really looking forward to watching the match. 

Tied cricket matches and cricket match classics

Since the time Test cricket began to be played there has been only two tied cricket matches in the history of the game. There has been 2168 Test Matches played till today, so less than 0.1% of the Test matches has ended in a tie. But whenever there is a tied test match the match has been wonderfully exciting.Interestingly both the tied Test Matches involved Australia as one of the teams. 

There are quite a few one day internationals that have ended in a tie. There are 29 one day internationals that have ended up in a tie. A tied match is always exciting and an apt result. In this matches both teams play equally well, but as we know in cricket losing by 1 run is as worse as losing by 100, so when there is a tie proper justice is done to the performance of both the teams in that match. 

The most exciting feature about a tied match is the the last over of the match often it would be a time when the batting team has certain amount of runs to get or the bowling team has to pick a certain number of wickets normally it is one or two. It is a time of the match where either of the two teams can end up winning the match. It a nerve wracking moment for the palyers coaches and fans. 

If a video presentation is made featuring the last overs of all tied matches , I am sure cricket lovers across the world would love to watch it. Unfortunately from the video both the tied test matches will be absent because none of them were video recorded. 

There are cricket lovers in India, and, I am sure in other countries of South Asia, who would love to watch the videos of some of the greatest cricketers in action. Who would not love to see the bowling of Marshal , Garner , Michael Holding, Jeff Thomson and Dennis Lillie and who would not want to see the batting of Viv Richards,Clive Lloyd , Kapil Dev, Gundappa Viswanath , Sunil Gavaskar etc. 

There are Indians who never seem to get tired of cricket. It is no doubt a great game. It is a game that requires one to be mentally strong and keep thinking all the times. Thinking circketers seem to become better and better.

India vs Bangladesh - 3rd one day

The series between India and Bangladesh was already decided in the last match when Bangladesh won two matches back to back. The real hero of Bangladesh's success has been the 19 year old Mustafizur Rehman. This medium fast bowler from Mirpur with his unique blend of cutters and seamers was unplayable in the first two matches in which he picked up 5 wickets and 6 wickets respectively. 

However in this match the Indians were playing Mustafizur much better. They playing Rehman of the backfoot letting the bowl come to them, today Mustafizur was able to claim just two wickets when Rohit tried to cut a ball that was wide of him but ended up giving an edge to the wicket-keeper and the other wicket he took was of Raina when he was looking to accelerate the scoring in the slog overs. He did bowl well but at the end did go for some runs, ended up giving 57 runs of his 10 overs.

Indians batted well kept wickets in hand and in the last 10 overs scored 90 runs that gave India and excellent total of 318 runs. The pitch was helping the spinners and medium pacers when they bowled cutters it was gripping the wicket and there was some deviation as well. 

Indian bowlers started well and got the wicket of Tamim Iqbal very early, Bangladesh batsmen went after the bowling of Stuart Binny and Umesh Yadav specially Soumya Sarkar, however Dhawal Kulkarni got his wicket in the 10th over. Bangladesh was scoring runs at a brisk rate but kept losing wickets and that was the difference between the two teams. Not a single Bangladeshi batsman was able to score a 50.

Ashwin once again bowled beautifully on this wicket where he picked up 2 wickets by giving just 35 runs in 10 overs. Even Raina the part time off-spinner had an excellent outing both with the bat and ball with the bat he scored a brisk 38 of a mere 21 balls and took 3 wickets for 45 runs, he was the highest wicket taker in the Bangladesh innings. Raina was rightfully given the man of the match.

Dhawal Kulkarni bowled well and picked up two wickets in mandatory power-play. He thus was responsible for giving a good start to Indian bowling. Yadav was expensive in spite of his pace, his pace actually made it easy for the batsman to score on this particular pitch. Yadav gave 33 runs in 4overs.

Binny did get the wicket of Shabbir Rehman and interestingly it was of a slower off-cutter that gripped the pitch and turned, the kind of bowling that is done by Mustafizur Rehman. It would be interesting to see how much success Mustafizur Rehman gets in other pitches and in overseas conditions. Not everywhere he will get such helpful conditions and he is not very express. 

The Bangladesh team was all out for 240 in the 47th over , marking a convincing consolation win for India. Thank God India didn't have to face a Banglawash like Pakistan. 

The difference between the two teams was surely Mustafizur Rehman , he did exactly what Ajantha Mendis did when he first began to play. Indians had no clue of what Ajantha was bowling and they just kept falling to him. Exactly same happened in case of Rehman, in the first two matches Indians had no clue how to play Mustafizur and the fell on the mat. Had Mustafizur not made his debut in this particular series the result may have been different it might have been India 3 Bangladesh 0 .

However as it turned out Bangladesh got its maiden one day series victory over India. A great moment for the 170 million strong cricket crazy nation. 

India vs Bangladesh - 2nd One Day

Well the Indian team was shocked by Bangladesh yesterday as it won the second consecutive match on the trot and thereby winning the series. The batting went down to the bowling of Mustafizur Rehman who picked up 5 wickets in the first match. In this match he picked up 6 wickets. The Indian batsmen seem to have no reply to his cutters. However watching the close in replays on TV , it appears that when he bowls his cutters his arm straightens by more than stipulated 15 degrees.

Just like in the Indian Premier League , Kolkata Knight Riders got Sunil Narine, Bangladesh seem to have got a bowler who is lethal on the Mirpur wicket. All Indian bowlers except Ashwin hardly made any impact on the Bangladeshi batsmen as they scored the required runs within 38 overs.

India lost the wicket of Rohit early because of an excellent catch. However it appeared that the Indian batsmen hardly made any effort to take the attack to the Bangladesh bowlers , they hardly came down the wicket to the medium pace of Mortaza or Rehman. The replacements Raydu and Patel did not score a single run. Both of them fell to the medium pace cutters of Mustafizur. 

Only Dhawan, Dhoni and Raina were able score runs however Dhoni and Raina were not their natural flamboynt self , they struggled to score runs but somehow managed to score 47 and 33 runs respectively. Both of them fell to Mustafizur while Dhawan fell to the offspin of Nasser Hossain. 

Bangladesh did not have any problems at all in dealing with the Indian bowlers. The only bowler who was able to make any impact was Ashwin. One difference between the two teams was the Bangladesh batsmen attacked Indian bowlers and did not allow them settle. 

After this series, it is now clear that Bangladesh are a new force in Asian cricket when it comes to one day cricket. Which is good for the game , Bangladesh has been given test status for almost 17 yrs,  it is only now they are delivering the goods.

With Bangladesh the world cricket now gets another 170 millions die hard cricket fans. The success of Bangladesh will inspire other Asian countries like Nepal and Afghanistan to become like them someday. The future of cricket certainly lies in South Asia.

The cricket fans of South Asia are more passionate about the game than fans anywhere else in the world. Its very difficult to say why cricket is so popular here but anyway it is the No.1 sport among all SAARC nations. 

India vs Bangladesh - 1st One day International match

The first one day match between India and Bangladesh at Mirpur has thrown out a surprising result. Batting first Bangladesh amassed 307runs while Indians fell 80 runs short of Bangladesh's total. This is Bangladesh's 5 win against much higher ranked Indians.

The main culprit for this result was the pitch. Bangladesh won the toss and elected to bat first. When the first Innings started the quick bowlers of India hardly got any help from the pitch. In fact even a swing bowler like Bhuvaneshwar Kumar was not able to swing the ball at all. The result - India which was playing with 3 quick bowlers, all of them got thrashed by the Bangladeshi Batsmen.

The pitch helped the spinners, however India has just one front-line off spinner Ashwin. Considering the fact that Bangladesh has so many left handed batsmen, it would have been better if India had selected two off spinners for the Bangladesh tour.

By the 15th over Bangladesh had already scored 119. It was the off-spin of Ashwin that got India its second,third and fourth wickets. Before that Soumya Sarkar was run out and that was India's first breakthrough. Part time off-spinner Raina did a splendid job he bowled 10 overs for just 40 runs. The fact that Bangladesh has so many left handed batsmen made it somewhat easy to play the the left arm spin of Jadeja who bowled 8 overs giving 48 runs and picking up a wicket.

In the slog overs even Kohli bowled his right arm leg-cutters for 2 overs conceding only 12 runs. So the Indian spinners bowled 30 overs conceding only 151 runs. While the fast bowlers conceded 156 runs in 20 overs. This turned out to be deciding factor of the match.

When Bangladesh had come to bowl the conditions had changed . Earlier in the day there was more than 40 minutes play delay due to rain. So the Indian innings started much later in the evening, in Bangladesh the evenings are much more humid and there is more moisture in the atmosphere and pitch. This factor helped the Bangladeshi fast bowlers.

However after initially starting a little tentatively, Rohit Sharma who is wonderful batting form went after the Bangladeshi bowling and scored fast runs. He scored at almost a run a ball while in the other end Shikhar Dhawan was struggling a bit. The fast bowlers did create chances but the Bangladeshi wicket-keeper failed to hang on to those regulation catches.

The Indian fortunes changed after Shikhar Dhawan's wicket fell. The new batsmen were unable to cope with the bowling that was aided by the conditions and the pitch. Taskin Ahmed got the wickets of Kohli immediately after getting Dhawan. Had Kohli left the ball alone it would have most probably been given a wide.

But the hero of the show turned out to be Mustafizur Rehman. His leg-cutters deviated by a huge amount. Rehman got the wicket of well set Rohit followed by the wickets of Rahane , Raina, Jadeja and Ashwin.

The condition for batting in the evening was not great as on many occasions the ball was not coming on to the bat well. Rahane totally mistimed his shot in which he got out. On the earlier delivery he had just hit a boundary.

Dhoni fell after just scoring 5 to the left arm spin of Shakib Al Hasan. Jadeja and Raina did build a good partnership of 60 runs but after that Raina and Ashwin fell to the left arm leg-cutters of medium pacer Mustafizur Rehman who was the man of the match for bagging 5 wickets.

Bhuvaneshwar Kumar did provide some late innings resistance scoring 25 not out of 21 balls however the entire Indian team was out for 227 runs.

Had the conditions of the pitch not changed during the second innings the result would have been different . It also makes sense for a team like Bangladesh to have pitches which behave differently under lights. So that on occasions when Bangladesh wins the toss it can chose to bat when the conditions are the best pile up lot of runs and let the other team bat when pitch is helping the bowlers. This way it can on certain occasions beat the best teams that are ranked way above it.

A fair assessment of a team's ability can only be done when it gets to play in uniform conditions for the entire match. Today Bangladesh were very lucky as the conditions were on their side. Had India won the toss and batted first. Bangladesh would have lost the match. In that case Mustafizur Rehman's leg-cutters won't have worked at all. The deviation won't have been there and the pace would have been easy picking for Indian batsmen.

There are still two one day matches left in the series and Indians will come back hard. That's for sure.  

Cricket - Popularity in India and South Asia

Talking about sports in India the most popular sport is cricket, other sports don't even come anywhere near cricket when it comes to popularity. The reason for such popularity is hard to determine. Since cricket is not a cheap game every cricket gear is expensive whether it be the bat, the ball, the pads, thigh pads, abdomen guard, elbow guard, gloves, helmet or chest guard.

The game is so popular that one can easily find kids and youngsters playing cricket in the streets of India. However most of them are never going to play cricket with exact cricket gears. Most of them would be playing cricket with a rubber or a tennis ball and a wooden bat. The ball that is actually used for cricket matches is very hard and normal bat that people use can't be used to play with that, since the bat would crack or break into two pieces. 

The popularity of cricket increased after the 1983 cricket world cup when India beat West Indies in the finals to win the world cup but even before that the game was popular. The Eden Gardens in Kolkata and Brabourne and Wankhede stadiums were always packed when India was playing. Before television the public would be glued to the radio sets to hear live running commentary of the cricket matches that featured India. 

It must also be noted that the BCCI has done wonderfully well in marketing the game to the Indian public as compared to other sports bodies in the country. BCCI is one of the richest sports bodies in the world. The Reliance Cricket World Cup of 1987, 1996 Wills World Cup and 2011 Cricket World Cup which were co-hosted in India were very successful. Specially the last two the were financially successful as well while 1987 World Cup was just about able to make some profits. As compared to soccer world cup the cricket world cups did not involve a single penny from the governments of the host country. 

If you look in TV the crowd profile of Indian public is different from the audience profile overseas. The spectators in India are far more passionate, far more enthusiastic as compared to spectators in Australia, South Africa and England. They make far more noise than overseas spectators.

The popularity of cricket has come down in West Indies, England and Australia, whereas the popularity of cricket is constantly increasing in India, Pakistan, Bangaldesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Afghanistan so cricket's future lies in South Asia and perhaps certain countries of Africa. 

India has played a big role in preserving and evolving this game without India cricket won't have been the same probably it would have almost gone out of existence. 

Cricket's birth might have happened in England but its now essentially a game dominated by India and South Asia. 

India vs Bangladesh Test Day 5

The final day of the test match between India and Bangladesh saw the first session washed off because of rains and wet outfield. However today for the first time the sun did come out and and it became possible to have some cricket after 12:15 IST. 

Bangladesh were playing at 111/3, on the final day after the rain delay only 67 overs, 52 overs plus 15 mandatory overs were supposed to be bowled. The best chance India had of producing a result was to end Bangladesh's first innings below the score of 262, so that they can enforce follow on. Bangladesh did keep losing wickets while there was some good batting as well.

The last Bangladesh wicket went for 256, so Bangladesh fell 7 runs short of avoiding follow on. India did enforce follow on but in the second innings Bangladesh batsmen were watchful and defensive in the first 15 overs only 23 runs were scored however they did not lose any wickets. There was a difficult chance to get batsman Tamim Iqbal's wicket but Virat Kohli was unable to grasp it. 

Captain Kohli judged that there was no chance of a result so the final two overs were given to Murli Vijay and Shikhar Dhawan respectively. When the mandatory overs started the two captains agreed and simply called off the match.

Thus because of the rain the match turned out to be a drab tame draw. Had India got 90 overs more the result would have been totally different. It was a match that was completely dominated by the Indians both with the bat and then with the ball. 

When you play Bangladesh there is very little to gain and a lot to lose after this draw India moves to No 4 in ICC rankings from No. 3. The reason for this draw is the rain and the rain has made India lose a spot in the ICC rankings it should be noted that had India by any chance lost the match India's ranking would have crashed down to No. 7. 

This was tailor made pitch for spin bowlers and Indian spinners did get their dividends Ashwin got a 5 wicket haul, his first 5 wicket haul overseas. However it should be noted that the conditions and pitch in Bangladesh is exactly similar to that in India. Harbhajan Singh who is playing his first Test after two years also got two wickets and bowled reasonably well. 

Its doubtful if Bhajji will get any more opportunities to play Test Cricket considering Ashwin's form. 

This one off test match will be followed by three one dayers all of them will be day and night encounters. The one day series is likely to be relatively more competitive than the Test Match. India will be the firm favourites to win the one day series and its very likely that India will make a clean sweep of the one day series. 

There is lot of enthusiasm in Bangladesh regarding this series. The enthusiasm for the game among Bangladesh public has given the circket world a new cricket powerhouse of the future. The future of the game lies in South Asia, in the future India , Pakistan , Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal and Afghanistan will be test playing nations that would dominate the world of cricket. 

Bangladesh vs India -4th day

As expected event he fourth day of the Bangladesh vs Indian test match was badly affected by rain only 30 overs and one ball was possible in which Bangladesh scored 111 runs for 3 wickets. The pitch did help the Indian bowlers the Bangladesh batsmen were really lucky that they did not lose more wickets than they actually did. 

The match is expected to be a train draw tomorrow even if all 98 overs are bowled tomorrow since it would be very difficult for India to get 17 wickets in this time. The test match should have been placed some other time ideally in Indian winter, Indian team could have simply dropped in for a 5 day match. Really the time selection for the test match was stupid everyone knows that monsoon normally comes in Bengal on June 10 every year.

Solution Needed in Cricket

Rain plays a major spoilsport in the game of cricket. Rain affects cricket more than any other game. As compared to soccer where you can see players playing the game even when it is raining pretty briskly, in cricket even a small drizzle stops the game and the a portion of the ground that comprises of the pitch and bowlers run ups has to be covered. This eats up lot of time in the game. This problem has persisted some countries have come out with solutions that has given partial solution of this problem  like super soaker.

The super soaker absorbs the water that's on the covers and in the outfield pretty fast thereby it is able to get the ground ready for play fast. However there is no technology solution there till that that can give a complete solution of this problem.

We need some technology that would keep the rain off the ground when a match is scheduled. Cricket grounds are huge so it is not possible to have roof overhead, putting such a roof would make it necessary to have pillars on the field itself which is not possible since they may obstruct the game. 

We need something that when we want would actually someway somehow obstruct the rain and disperse it to areas outside the ground. If such a technology is made it will be of great use in cricket as no one wants a rain marred cricket match. 


Technology has solved a lot of complex problems that man used to face earlier, hopefully this problem of rain marred cricket matches is solved soon. There have been too many cases where in a competitive tournament a team has been thrown out just because of a rain delay. Take the infamous 1992 Cricket World Cup semi-final match between Pakistan and South Africa. The rain delay resulted in revised target of getting 11 runs of 1 ball which is impossible to score. South Africa lost that match and Pakistan went on the become champions.

There are so many occasions when teams are actually denied a test victory because of rain immediately what comes to my mind is a 1997 test match in South Africa between India and South Africa in which the last day saw lots of rains and India was unable to get the last two wickets. Again in that wonderful series against Australia in Australia the last test match could have been won by India had the rain gods not intervened. 

No spectator who has gone to the ground for watching a cricket match wants a match that is washed out by rain. A spectator not only loses the money he spent to buy the ticket but also there is a deep disappointment after spending hours in rain in hope of getting to see some cricket. Lets hope that in the near future there would be some technology solution to this rained off cricket matches and people get to see more results.

India vs Bangladesh Day 3

As expected the rain has played spoilsport in the Test Match between Bangladesh and India. Out of the scheduled 270 overs , only 103 overs and 3 balls have been bowled. Indians did bat briskly to score 462 runs which is very fast by test match standards.

Today's Team India's focus was on scoring fast runs so batsmen took chances and in that process did end up giving their wickets. The Bangladesh bowling was also better than the first day and the pitch was also offering a bit of assistance.

Now two more days remain in this test match if the rain gods are kind enough we can have another 180 overs or 196 over at the most of cricket possible. Now if India declare tomorrow morning and if the Indian bowlers are penetrative enough to get Bangladesh out twice and the first time they have got to get them out below 262 so that they are in a position to enforce follow on, then we can expect a result in this test match.

At the moment it looks like only two results are possible if the weather holds and Indians bowl well we may have an Indian victory or we may have some rains and there is very little chance of getting a result.

Lets hope that Bhajji uses this opportunity well to make his way back into the team. It is observed that spinners improve with time. All of us would love to see Bhajji bowl well and play for India for a few more years.

West Indies Cricket

West Indies is not a nation, it is a cricket team that comprises of independent nations like Antigua and Barbuda, Guyana, Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, St Lucia, Jamaica etc. It has been playing Test Cricket since 1928. The West Indies cricket team was once a force to reckon with particularly in the 70s and in the early  80s, the team was simply invincible. 

West Indies produced some of the greatest fast bowlers ever like Andy Roberts, Malcom Marshall, Joel Garner, Micheal Holding(probably the fastest bowler ever) all of them were very fast disciplined and accurate and all of them were feared by batsmen around the world. So great was this bowling side that a world class fast bowler like Silvester Clarke rarely got a chance to play. 

Just like in their bowling the West Indies team back then had some of the best batsmen ever. The opening batsmen were the great Gordon Greenidge and Desmond Hayes another great, at number 3 came one of the greatest batsmen ever Vivian Richards followed by the captain and another great batsman and fielder Clive Lloyd. They had an excellent wicketkeeper in Jeff Dujon who could also bat and Larry Gomes was a decent allrounder. 

Michael Holding

Andy Roberts 

Malcom Marshall

Joel Garner

Sir Vivian Richards

Gordon Grenidge

Clive Lloyd

This was the team of the 70s and 80s when West Indies won the 1975 World Cup and 1979 World Cup respectively and were the finalists in the 1983 world cup. After Clive Lloyd, Viv Richards became the captain of the West Indian team and had a very successful captaincy career. West Indies cricket during its heydays were one of the best sports team of the world. Unbelievably talented and disciplined. They played entertaining and delightful cricket that cricket lovers across the world enjoyed. 

Even before this era there were lots of greats that West Indies had produced. Sir Garfield Sobers was the greatest allrounder ever in the history of the game. Even when West Indies cricket was in decline it did have great batsman like Brain Lara and Carl Hooper and great bowlers like Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh.

In time the Caribbean countries being so near to the United States started to get influenced by Basketball, American Football and Soccer. Being good in this games enabled them to get a scholarship in the US. Being good in Soccer enabled them to get a contract in EPL or Spanish League. So in time the popularity of cricket did come down in the Caribbean islands. 

However even today West Indies teams does have players of excellent quality like Darren Bravo, Dwayne Bravo, Chris Gayle, Lendel Simmons , Marlon Samuels, Kieron Pollard, a world class allrounder like Andre Russel , a mystry bowler like Sunil Narine( hopefully his action is fine), Jerome Taylor, Tino Best and others.  
  

India vs Bangladesh Test - Day 1

The first day of the test match between Bangladesh and Indian in Fateullah was badly marred by rain. Only 56 overs of bowling was possible due to rain. But Indian batsmen made most of the conditions. The pitch was good for batting and the Bangladesh bowling hardly troubled India.

Shikhar Dhawan played briskly scoring at more than a run a ball to reach his third century. He is currently batting on 150 runs of 158 balls and tomorrow should try to convert it into a double or ideally triple century. His partner Murali Vijay played relatively slowly and is currently batting on 89 of 178 balls.

Not a single Bangladesh bowler was able to trouble the openers as India ended the first day at 239/0. The weather prediction for this match is not great tomorrow the chances of rain are even higher. So whatever opportunity to play the batters get they must make the most of it and score as many runs as possible.

My prediction for this test match is most probably its going to be a draw because of the weather. But its a great opportunity for Indian batsmen to accumulate lots of runs against the weak Bangladesh bowling. 

Australia - Small nation great success in sports

Today Australia became the world champion in cricket for the 5th time. It is noticeable that Australia has made it to the finals of the World Cup for 7 times and won an impressive 5 times , that's a very high success rate. 

What's impressive about the Australian cricket team is its bench strength. Players of excellent quality like George Baily, Mitchell Marsh , Shaun Marsh were sitting in the bench. Australia could have sent a team of its reserves and may have still won the world cup. 

The reason for this is Australia has a tremendous sports infrastructure for all sports including cricket. The first class competitions in Australia is competitive and there are acadamies that produce excellent cricketers. 

Its not just in cricket in almost every sport that is played globally Australia tends to do well be it hockey, rugby, soccer, swimming. In every Olympics Australia ends up as one of top medal holders. Even the Australian people are great sport enthusiasts. 

Australia has a population of around 25 million people. India adds this many people to its population each year but still lags behind Australia in the most popular game in India --cricket and in other sports Australia is way ahead. 

However sport is not everything in life. Play for fun. :)

   

World Cup Final: New Zealand vs Australia

The world cup final between New Zealand and Australia actually turned out to be quite an anti climax. The match was completely one sided . Batting first New Zealand lost their first wicket without a run on board. The wicket was of Brendon McCullum. At one stage NewZealand was 39/3 when Ross Taylor and Grant Elliot steadied the innings and formed a good partnership of 111 runs. 

At the begining of the batting powerplay in the 36th over New Zealand lost the wicket of Taylor and consistently kept loosing wickets after that . In fact 36 th over bowled by James Faulkner was a double wicket maiden. The next over they lost the wicket of Ronchi so suddenly from 150/3 the score became 151/6. 

The rest of the batsmen were able to do very little as the entire team got out for a mere 183 runs. 

In reply the Australians comfortably scored 184 runs for the loss of 3 wickets in the 34th over. Thus winning the world cup for the 5th time. They were certainly the best team of the tournament and deserving champions. 

CONGRATULATIONS TO TEAM AUSTRALIA

2nd Semi Final: India vs Australia

In Sydney the second semi-final match between Australia and India was played and India lost the match by a margin of 95 runs. The loss though does not make India a bad team but it is clear that Australia in home conditions is a superior team. Having born and brought up on those pitches and grounds they are naturally adept to playing in those conditions. 


Probably Australians had a psychological advantage over India as well since in the entire season India has not won any match against Australia. After Australia chose to bat at SCG India did manage to get the first wicket pretty early and cheaply. However Steve Smith who has scored tonnes of runs against Indians in the Test Series once again proved to be thorn for Indians . Smith and Finch build a big middle over partnership at over 5.3 runs an over. 


Australia did lose lots of wickets in the later part of the innings in trying to make the scoring rate faster. However a deep batting line up ensured that the rate of scoring was maintained. Australia ended up with a mammoth total of 329 runs for the loss of 7 wickets. In reply India did start off solidly and well in the first 10 overs India scored 55 runs. 16 runs came of the 10th over. By the 13th over India's score reached 76/0 and India looked good with Shikhar Dhawan going after the bowling. 

But from the last ball of the 13th over the carnage started. Shikhar Dhawan who was playing beautifully till now ended up hitting a ball straight down the throat of Glenn Maxwell. Virat Kohli came to the crease and played 5 dot balls in the 14th over, off the last ball of the 14th over he scored a single. The next over played by Virat was a maiden. 

Virat seemed to be under pressure having made just 1 of 12 balls . The next ball he got he tried to pull a ball that was outside off stump but the ball bounced too much took the top edge of the bat and was out caught by the wicketkeeper. After that the Australians bowled well and Indians kept losing wickets at regular intervals and struggled to keep up with the scoring rate . By the 40 th over India had lost 5 wickets and needed more than 12 runs per over.

Although Dhoni was there in the crease and did play a few good shots he could do very little and India lost the match by a big margin. Cricket is a highly condition dependent game . The same Australian team lost all 4 test matches when they came to play a test series in India. 

But there is no reason for Indian fans to despair , India did win 7 consecutive games on the trot. The bowling has been exceptional. Only today India managed to get a mere 7 Aussie wickets whereas in the previous World Cup games India had got the oppositions all out every time they took the field. 

The kind of performance showed by Australian team makes them hot favourites to win this world cup on home ground . The MCG is a large ground so miss hits there would end up in the hands of the fielders. 

This is the first time the world is going to witness a trans-Tasmanian rivalry in the final of the Cricket World Cup. The two nations Australia and New Zealand have tremendous rivalry in every sport they play . The final is likely to be a cracker of a match with Australia being firm favourites.