Yuvraj Singh could have almost become a villain

Cricket is the most popular sport in India and indeed a very funny game. The gap between becoming a hero and villain is very thin, probably thinner than the width of hair. The best example can be seen in today's match. 

Last time Yuvraj got an opportunity to bat in a T20 international match was in the ICC T20 World Cup. In that match Yuvraj struggled to score runs and that resulted in India setting a low winning total for Sri Lanka and Sri Lanka won the match. Yuvraj was criticized from all corners and ultimately 2011 World Cup hero was dropped from the side. 

Almost after two years Yuvraj got this opportunity to bat in a international T20 match today. But he came at a time when the team needed to score quick runs. It was not an easy task for someone who just came to bat to start scoring. Yuvraj struggled and not at the right time, thankfully on the other end he had Raina who was batting wonderfully well. 

Before the last over, Yuvraj had scored only 2 runs of 8 balls. Many would have recalled the horrors of the World Cup Final two years ago. Thankfully Yuvraj was lucky this time, the first ball bowled by Andrew Tie was towards the legside which Yuvraj hit for four. He probably tried to ball a yorker next ball, but got the length wrong , the result was it became half volley which Yuvraj hit over midwicket with great timing and power for a six. 

Had Yuvraj not been able to hit either of the shots, India would have lost the match and he would have been abused across social media. The print media would have written him off as a villain as a lost cause and this match might have been the last T20 or one dayer for him. He just managed to save himself by the breadth of hair. 

Lucky Yuvraj, one hopes we get to see lots of wonderful T20 and one day innings from his bat in the future. 

India vs Australia - Last T20 - History Made

In the last 140 years, no visiting team in Australia has made complete sweep of a series. However today India has changed all that. India won the 3 match T20 series against Australia 3-0. The Australians decided to bat when the saw a flat track in Sydney. 

Shane Watson batted beautifully and scored 124 runs of 71 balls. He started slow, but when he got two back to back free hits of Bhumra, he started hitting boundaries. India did take wickets at regular intervals in the first 10 overs, however Watson continued demolishing Indian bowling. 

Few runout chances were missed off Watson. Virat Kohli was unable to hang on to a catch of Watson. The spin duo of Jadeja and Ashwin were not as effective as the other two matches. Australia managed to make a mammoth total of 197 runs in the stipulated 20 overs.

When India came in to bat, openers Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan made a cracking start. In the first 6 overs Indian managed more than 70 runs and just lost one wicket of Dhawan. Virat Kohli and Rohit both batted beautifully. However Aussie leg spinner Boyce managed to slow down the scoring. He was giving the ball lot of air.

Rohit Sharma was caught by Watson of the bowling of Boyce. Boyce also took the wicket of Virat Kohli. Virat came down the track to his ball, the ball hit Virat's pad and rolled back to wicket dislodging the bail. While Raina was batting well and aggressively,  Yuvraj struggled initially.

All throughout Indian batsmen managed to keep a good scoring rate. India needed 22 runs of 12 balls. In the 19th over, India got only 5 runs. Which meant India now needed 17 of the last over with Yuvraj on strike. Yuvraj was then struggling to score. He had scored only 2 of 8 balls.

In the last over when Tie came in to bowl, Yuvraj hit the first ball for a boundary. The next ball was hit for a six. Yuvraj managed a bye of the next ball. India needed 6 of the next 3 balls. Raina got 2 of the fourth ball,in the next ball he scored 2 more. In the last ball India needed 2 runs , Raina hit the ball over the head of the point fielder and it went to the boundary. 

Aussies did miss a stumping chance of Raina. The second ball of the last over was a no ball but the umpire missed it. 

All said and done this is a tremendous result for Team India. Due to this clean sweep, India now tops the charts of T20 rankings. This series win makes India firm favourite for the T20 World Cup. 

India vs Australia 2nd T20

Finally after 8 years India has won another series in Australia under Dhoni's leadership. India won today's T20 encounter with Australia. Australia won the toss and sent India to bat. Indian batsmen did not disappoint at all. Today even Shikhar got among the runs, he made 42 of 32 balls.

Rohit Sharma played another excellent innings scoring 60 of just 47 balls before being run out due to a misunderstanding with Virat Kohli. Dhawan and Rohit had given an excellent start to India and together they scored 97 runs. Shikhar tried to reverse sweep Maxwell, he managed to connect well. However the shot went in the air directly to the fielder at short third man. 

Virat, who had scored an unbeaten 90 runs in the previous match, kept his good form going by scoring a fast 59 of 33 balls. He tonked the Aussie bowlers all around the park. When Rohit's wicket fell Dhoni came in to bat and he scored a quick 14 runs of 9 balls. Dhoni fell in the last over trying to score fast.

Indians finished with a good total of 184. No team has won an international  T20 match in Australia scoring that many runs, so Australia had to make history to win this match. The Australians started well. Openers Finch and Shaun Marsh started scoring runs fast. In the first 9 overs Australia managed an excellent 10 runs an over without losing any wicket. Indians were not fielding well, they dropped a few catches and Dhoni missed a stumping chance of Finch. 

However things changed in the 10th over when Ashwin managed to get the wicket of Marsh. In the next over bowled by Pandya, Dhoni took an excellent catch to dismiss Lynn. Now wickets started falling. In the 12th over Maxwell was brilliantly stumped by Dhoni, Yuvraj took the wicket. Indian spinners managed to get wickets and at the same time stem the flow of runs. 

The wicket of Watson came of an amazing return catch taken by Ravindra Jadeja. Watson hit back the ball very hard. Jadeja took a blinder of a catch, he had less than half a second to react. Wickets kept falling and the new batsmen found it hard to score runs at required rate. Australia ended the innings with a total of 157/8. Bhumrah got two wickets in the last over. 

Again the secret of India's victory in this match was the ability to pick up wickets. Indians took 8 wickets in quick succession. When Indians were batting, Aussies barely managed to take 3 wickets. The top 3 Indian batsmen had enough time to get their eye in and hence India scored the mamoth total in the large MCG ground. 

It is really heart warming to see India win a series in Australia. It would be great to see India win the series 3-0 on Sunday. But one feels that the likes of Yuvraj Singh, Raina, Pandya and others must get a fair chance to bat in the next match. 

We are just a month away from the T20 cricket world cup. India's wonderful performance in Australia raises hopes that India may become the T20 World Champion once again. 

India vs Australia - first T20

Today 26th of January happened to be the Indian Republic Day and Australia Day as well. The first of the three T20 encounters between India and host Australia was played today in Adelaide. Indians were pretty confident after their win in the last one day match.

Australia won the toss and put India into bat. Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan, both of whom are in excellent form started the innings. In the first over of the match, Rohit hit Shaun Tait for a boundary and six, Tait bowled very fast, his first ball clocked 150 kph, but since he was not accurate today, his speed became useful to the batsmen and they scored of him. 

In the first four overs India scored 40 runs. Most of the runs were made by Rohit Sharma. However when Shane Watson came to bowl in the fifth over he picked up the wicket of Rohit in the first ball. Rohit mistimed the shot and he was picked up by the fielder at mid on. Although Watson was slower than the other two fast bowlers who bowled before him, he was far more effective than them, simply because a bowled better line and length. 

In the same over Watson picked up the wicket of Shikhar Dhawan of a ball which was a disguised slower bouncer. He tried to direct the bouncer over the head of keeper but was deceived by the lack of pace and ended up giving an easy catch to Wade. Watson thus gave only one run in the fifth over and picked up both the openers. This slowed India's scoring rate. 

At number four Raina came to bat. He did manage to score runs but was not really his fluent self, at times Raina struggled with the short pitched stuff. On the other side Virat was going hammer and tongs on all the Australian bowlers, hitting them at will. Except for Shane Watson, all bowlers conceded lots of runs to the Indian total. Australia failed to pick up regular wickets and this helped Indian batsmen to get their eye in and then score big. In the later part of the innings even Raina scored briskly. 

India lost its third wicket in the last over. Dhoni came into bat and hit a helicopter shot of the first ball he faced over midwicket for a six. The next ball was hit over point for a four, this shot fell a few inches away from the rope. Dhoni scored 11 runs of the three balls he faced by picking a single of the fifth ball of the over. India ended up with a score of 188, with man of the match Virat Kohli scoring a lightning 90 of 55 balls.

Australia too started their innings at a blitzkrieg pace. While the first over went for just 5 runs, in the next over bowled by Ashwin, 17 runs were scored. Australians kept scoring fast till Bhumrah was introduced into the attack. Warner tried to pull a ball that Bhumrah bowled way outside the offstump, but he ended up giving Kohli an easy catch. 

Steve Smith came into bat and the scoring rate continued to be fast. When Pandya came to bowl, he ended up bowling five wides in an over and that over went for 19 runs. However the game turned when Steve Smith was caught by Kohli off Ravindra Jadeja's bowling and after that carnage followed for Australia.

The next over was bowled by Ashwin, he decided to bowl round the wicket. The first ball he bowled in his second over, he appealed for a LBW. However the umpire didn't give it and told Ashwin that he was not able to see anything since Ashwin blocked his view in his follow through. 

Ashwin rectified this in the next ball, the umpire had a better view this time and adjuged Finch LBW. After this Australia's scoring rate came down and at the same time they kept losing wickets at regular intervals.

The Aussie batsmen were constantly under pressure since none of them had time to get their eye in. They had to go for their shots and fell to some high quality spin bowling of Ashwin and Jadeja. The spin duo picked up 2 wickets each.

Ashwin who went for 17 runs in his first over gave just 11 of next 3 overs, picking up 2 wickets at the same time as well. Pandya came in to bowl in his second spell and even he ended up getting a couple of wickets. Every Indian bowler got wickets except Yuvraj who bowled just one over. 

Australia were all out for 151 runs, Bhumrah picked up 3 wickets and the last wicket was also picked by him. This gave India a victory with a nice margin of 37 runs. 

The major difference between the two teams was the ability to pick up wickets. While Australia were not able to take wickets. The much criticized Indian bowling bowled the entire Aussie side out. This is the first occasion after 2012 that an entire Australian side has been bowled out in a T20 encounter in Australia. 

From an Indian cricket fan's point of view, this is a heartwarming performance. One just hopes that Team India continues such performances in the next two T20 matches as well.

After losing the one day series, it would be wonderful to see India win the T20 series against Australia. It would be a great confidence booster for the Indian team keeping in mind that in March, T20 World Cup will be played in India. 

Cricket - Allrounders

Cricket primarily comprises of three skills viz batting, bowling and fielding. While fielding is compulsory for all players, all have to be good fielders, normally players come either as bowlers or as batsmen. Then there are few who are capable of doing both, but they are very few.

When we talk about allrounders, most allrounders whom we have in world cricket are either batsmen who can bowl or bowlers who can bat. Now they won't be picked in the side for their lesser skill, for example if Sanath Jayasurya was incapable of batting he won't have been picked in Sri Lankan side for bowling. Similarly if Wasim Akram was unable to bowl then he won't have been picked in the team only as a batsman. 

You can't call the above mentioned players allrounders. Allrounders are those who are so good at both the skills that they can be picked in the team either as a batsman or as a bowler. Examples of genuine allrounders from the past are Ian Botham, Kapil Dev, Imran Khan, Richardson Hadlee etc. 

People may even call Jacques Kallis as a genuine allrounder but one is pretty sure that in the South African side he won't have been picked if he was only a bowler. The other guys who can be regarded as genuine allrounders to a certain extent were Andrew Flintoff of England and Shane Watson of Australia. For some time Shane Watson was a genuine allrounder, however these days he is more of a batter than a bowler.

However Chris Crains of New Zealand was a genuine all rounder. He played primarily as a batsman when he was unable to bowl because of an injury. In today's cricket Ravindra Jadeja of India and Andre Russel of West Indies can be regarded as genuine allrounders, since they are important players both with the bat and with the ball. Mitchell Marsh of Australia has the potential to become a genuine all rounder.

All rounders play a big role in the success of a team. They add an extra player to the team because of their excellence in both the departments of the game. Most of the great teams of all times had atleast one great allrounder. 

India vs Australia - 5th ODI

India finally managed to win a one day match in India on 23rd January, this was the last match of the one day series between Australia and India. The match was held in Sydney and the pitch was same as other matches, it was a flat track, batsmen's delight, bowler's nightmare. Australia batted first, lost an early wicket when the ball was swinging a bit, but then its scoring rate went up to around 6 runs an over. 

Jaspreet Bhumrah playing his first ODI bowled beautifully and showed others how to ball on these tracks. He picked up the wicket of Steve Smith. Australia lost wickets in quick succession, however when Mitchell Marsh came to bat, the played probably the best innings of his one day career till now. Marsh got a century and Australia again managed to get a huge score of 330 runs in stipulated 50 overs.

India started steadily and the first wicket partnership scored 123 runs till the wicket Dhawan fell. Virat did not last long and he went early when India's score was at 134. However Manish Pandey played a wonderful innings giving excellent support to Rohit Sharma. Unfortunately Rohit was not able to get the 3rd century of this series. He was out at 99.

Dhoni came in when the score was at 231. Dhoni is not in a great batting form and it showed in the way he batted. He struggled to get runs pushing up the asking rate. The pressure to score runs on Manish increased but he was up to the task. It came to a point when India needed around 36 runs of 18 balls. However in the next two overs Indians were able to get 23 runs, in the last over 13runs were needed, the over was bowled by Mitch Marsh. The first ball was a wide. Dhoni finally managed to hit a six in the next ball. He tried a similar shot in the second ball however he was caught out. 

Manish Pandey was now on strike. Manish hit the ball for a boundary and that brought his century as well. Now India needed 2 runs of 3 balls. The field was in. So Manish hit the ball in the air towards the direction of long off. The batsmen ran two runs and India won the match. 

India had an even better chance of winning the fourth ODI had they played the way they did in the 5th ODI. A question rises about the pitches on which these one dayers were played. This are not the typical Australian wickets of the past that offered assistance to bowlers. This pitches had no help for the bowlers and the Team that batted second had the best chance of winning the match. 

One hopes that India plays better in the T20 series scheduled to begin from 26th January. 

India vs Australia - 4th one dayer

The fourth one day turned out to be a high scoring match with Australia posting a huge 348 runs first innings total. India were equally up to to the task, India scored 277/1 and needed just 72 runs of 75 balls to win the match. But after that, carnage followed. It was one of the worst batting performances by the middle and lower order Indian batsmen ever seen.

This days batting collapses have become a rarity since teams are used to playing T20s where they end up scoring even 70 of 30 balls to win a match. However it seems like India's middle order and lower order were not focused at all in winning the game. In what should have been a cakewalk, they ended up undoing all the good work done by Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Shikar Dhawan.

For the first time in the ongoing series the Australian captain and bowlers seemed out of ideas when Shikhar and Kohli were batting. The top three Indian batsmen batted so well that they made Australian bowling look absolutely ordinary. The bowlers were totally ineffective. The wicket of Rohit Sharma was taken by Kane Richardson, not because of brilliant bowling, it was a horrible delivery way wide of the leg stump. Sharma tried to glance it but it took his glove and Wade took a brilliant catch.

After that there was a wonderful partnership between Shikhar and Kohli and in the 37th over India were crusing at 277/1. However after the fall of Shikhar's wicket a wicket storm followed. Dhoni came down the track to Hastings in the second ball he faced and ended up giving a thin edge to the wicket keeper. The middle order and the lower middle cracked and the entire Indian team was out for 323 runs.

Really this questions the team selection. Why do we need below average players like Gurkeerat Singh Mann and Rishi Dhawan when we have way more talented and experienced players like Gambheer, Yuvraj, Manoj Tiwari, Murli Vijay etc. Gurkeerat and Rishi neither bowled well, they leaked a lot of runs and they were not even able to contribute anything with the bat. A team whose middle and lower middle order cannot even score 72 of 75 balls on a flat batting track deserves to lose and that's what happened.

Dhoni gets away with failures overseas and that is the reason why he has become complacent. Its about time when the Team India's captaincy is handed over the Virat Kohli. The truth is had Indian bowling been better, India could very well have been up 4-0 in this series, rather than the other way round.

The real reason behind constant bad performances by Team India when it travels overseas is that no action is taken against the team or captain. In India cricket is the only sport that has a mass following. So even if the team does not do well, the people of the country will still watch cricket. In Australia where they have more than one popular sport, if the team starts performing badly then hardly anyone will come to watch the game. This keeps the players and teams on their toes they have to keep performing well to keep the Australian public interested in the game. 

It has been really disappointing to watch Team India's performance in Australia. One just hopes that performances improve in the upcoming T20s and the last one dayer. 

First three one day matches - India vs Australia

India performed exceedingly well in the ICC Cricket world cup last year in Australia. India won all its league matches and the quarterfinals before going down to Australia. The pace trio of Shami, Umesh and Mohit Sharma was very effective. India bowled out each and every team before 50 overs except for the semi finals against Australia.

However after 11 months the same set of players are not able to repeat their performance in Australia. Yes its true that Mohommad  Sami is injured. But the rest of the bowlers are not really bowling their best. Umesh Yadav who took 18 wickets in 8 matches of the World Cup has been hit around by Australian batsmen. He has not bowled a consistent line and length. 

The debutant Barindar Saran and Ishant Sharma have not been very effective. Ravichandran Ashwin who took heaps of wickets in the test series against South Africa on the turning tracks has been a no show in Australia. The bowling failure has been a major cause of India's loss of the bilateral one day series. The bowling simply outdid all the good work done by the batsmen.

India batted pretty well in all the three one day internationals scoring 309, 308 and 295 respectively. However each time the Australians were able to get past Indian total. In Perth and Brisbane Australia actually set new records for highest score made by a team batting second in a winning effort. In Melbourne though the match was relatively more competitive however Australia had the last laugh. 

The plus for Indian team should be the batting of Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli. Rohit Sharma hit two consecutive centuries in the first and second one day internationals. The hundreds were big hundreds. Virat got a century in the third one day. Other than that there is very little to cheer about India's performance down under till now. 

One just hopes that in the next two matches, Team India can atleast bowl better than what they have done till now and win at least one of the two matches, to avoid a complete white wash.