My Thoughts

Archive for March 11th, 2009

Sehwag blasts the kiwi bowlers on his way to his match winning 125 no in the 4th ODI

Sehwag blasts the kiwi bowlers on his way to his match winning 125 no in the 4th ODI

It was a great performance by the Indian team to win the one day series in New Zealand for the first time. Yesterday’s match again was rain affected and the way Sehwag and Ghambir kept India way ahead of the Duckworth-Lewis (DL) calculation was absolutely brilliant. The Indian bowling though was patchy. The start was good but they did not keep up the tempo letting Mccullum and Ryder to get off to a flier. Yuvraj and Yusuf Pathan were brought into the attack and they were successful in putting the brakes on the Kiwi openers.

The Indian fielding again was not up to the mark. There were lots of misfields and missed chances along the way during the New Zealand innings. Brendon Mccullum was given two reprieves during his innings of 77 and Dhoni’s miss stumping was the worst of the two. India’s bowling at the death was also not that spectacular as they were carted around easily by Andrew Mcglashan and Grant Elliot. After the rain interrupted first innings New Zealand reached a competitive 270/5 in 47 overs which was bumped up to 281 for the Indians to chase by the DL. Ishant Sharma was rusty on his return to the side and was inconsistent. Even though he picked up two wickets he was really shabby with no balls and got hit around a little bit. Hopefully he will get his act together before the important test series to start in a week’s time.

So India started their innings needing almost 6 an over which is kind of tough in a game with so many rain interruptions. Well it’s not something which troubled the Indian openers though as they took the kiwi bowlers to the cleaners. Nothing worked for the New Zealand captain last night as the Indians rattled along at over 7 runs per over. All the bowlers were treated with equal contempt by the Indian openers. Sehwag blasted his way to a brilliant one day hundred of just 60 deliveries which is an Indian record. It was a display of calculated hitting and it came of brilliantly for the Indian opener. Sehwag finished on 125 unbeaten when the rain interrupted play for one final time. The Indians were racing along in the pursuit of 220 of 36 overs as they were 201/0 in just 23.3 overs.

The Kiwis will be really disappointed in losing the series 3-0 as this is the first time they have lost to the Indians at home. Dhoni and his team though would be enjoying this moment as it adds yet another brilliant win to their resume. The Indians though would want to finish the series 4-0 and get as much confidence as possible for the test series. They would have been bolstered by the news of Rahul Dravid scoring a fantastic hundred in the New Zealand domestic game. All in all a great performance from the Indian team after losing the first two Twenty20 games. Hope they carry this confidence to the test series too.

The Black & White round day 2 was interesting with some surprise performances. First PBS was missing today even though Manorama Aachi was still there viewing the performances. Already there were two spot selections from day 1 and day 2 had 5 performances in the offing.

The first performance of the day was Vijay Narayanan. His was a very inconsistent performance. I just felt that his pitch was all over the place when he started but later on he picked up. The judges felt the same and rightly he wasn’t spot selected. I guess Vijay has to do something about his “Sruthi” if he has to progress in this competition and currently looks like the one to receive the axe in this round unless he does something spectacular tonight.

The second performance of the day was Raghini. I just feel that Raghini is always a hit or Miss Singer but yesterday she gave a stellar performance with the “Elandha Pazham” song and the judges loved it. The good thing about her performance last night was that she was smiling throughout her performance and also after it. The Judges and Manorama Aachi were really impressed with her version of the song. She was spot selected two rounds in a row which is impressive if we take into account that she was mostly in the final two before the recall. It seems like Raghini is improving. This is a good thing as it will help her to go further in this competition.

The third performer of the day was Ravi who was in his elements yesterday. He sang a classical based song yesterday which we know is a meat and drink for someone with the caliber of Ravi. He absolutely mesmerized the judges and the chief guest of this show Manorama Aachi, who stood up and applauded Ravi’s performance. It was a brilliant performance from him. I am positive that I saw some tears coming down from Srinivas’s eyes yesterday. Even though Ravi got spot selected Unnikrishnan requested him to perform on the third day too.

The fourth performance of the day was Ranjani who gave a good performance. She sang a song which was perfect for her voice and pulled it off brilliantly. The judges liked it and she was through to the next round to join Ajeesh, Renu, Raghini and Ravi.

It seems like Rohit was unable to come in yesterday due to some unforeseen circumstances, the judges said that he can perform with Prasanna and Vijay on the third day. That ended the show last night and without doubt the performer of the day was Ravi.

I am not sure who will get eliminated today but I am guessing it will be someone between Vijay and Rohit. Lets wait and see.