Let’s state two highlights today. The first, Dravid was rested. Secondly, India won. No, I’m not correlating, but merely stating two facts.
On a rather serious note, people have hit back on the Wall’s exclusion. Spare a thought for the selectors - the guy doesn’t perform, you drop him, and the match you drop him requires the services of a strong middle-order batsman strong in defence chasing 193 where run-rates aren’t too worrying. How unfortunate indeed.
On the Mumbai ODI itself, well, what do you say at a team like ours? We bowled exceptionally well - Karthik surprisingly got wickets, six of them to be precise, he’s the same guy who was initially offered to comment on the series from the media-center - and we fielded decently although there were chances we didn’t take. Not many teams end up bowling Australia out within 50 overs for less than 200, and with only 193 to chase, one would think India had the match safely pocketed.
Yeah, right. It just occurred to me - we’re a team that’ll make a match out of chasing 24 on a belter, if we could.
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So the batting card walked out there, and horribly shuffled around, ducked, swayed and shuddered in fright before perishing to the pace of Yellow. Ganguly and Karthik - Dravid’s replacement - decided to give the scorers the day off, Tendulkar has the woodwork in a mess, Yuvraj was uncharacteristically measured and Dhoni hopped around for a bit. When Pathan had strolled out for a quick see-in (and promptly walked back after a quicker see-you), India were reeling at 64-6 before Uthappa and Bhajji had enough. Utthappa played extremely well for his 47, a fighting knock in the context of the match, one that brought India to within a whisker of the victory. The tail held their nerves, common sense prevailed and some wayward bowling from Australia (who actually conded 20 wides, would you believe it?) allow India to scamper through and regain some respect from a series they deserved to lose from day one.
Simply becase, hello, Australia played more professionally, were more consistent and were more positive.
India’s aggression, on the other hand, was limited to a fiery burst of pace from Zaheer and Sreesanth, the latter sprinkling a bit of southie profanity to stir the Australian camp up. Didn’t go down too well with Andrew Symonds, and if looks are anything to judge by, he’s one bloke I wouldn’t want to piss off. Instead, Sreesanth got whacked all over the park in his recent outings provoking the selectors to show him out and draft RP Singh in, injuries be damned.
Eventually, we limped across and won, and all is forgotten.
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It will be interesting to see the team selection for the one-off T20 at Bombay in a few days from now. I’d pick the same team that won the finals at the Wanderers, but then again, that’s me. Will bring the match live, ball-by-ball come Saturday evening. Until then, adios.
