Posts Tagged ‘India’
India look to build on the Momentum
Posted on: March 5, 2009
Sehwag executes a pull during his 56 ball 77 in the first game in Napier
India put behind their dissapointing twenty20 outing with a strong performance in the first ODI at Napier. Everything went according to the plan for the men in blue starting with the toss. Dhoni won the toss and decided to bat on a good batting pitch and his batsmen did not dissapoint him. Newzealand bowlers were wayward and Sehwag along with Sachin got India to a flier before the rain halted the play for the first time. India were 27/0 in the 5th over.
The game began after a 2 hr 20 minute break as a 38 over a side contest. Sehwag and Sachin began positively putting on 69 for the first wicket of just 10 overs. Sachin was out trying to run Ian Butler to third man and much to the surprise of everyone the Indian captain walked out to the middle instead of Gautam Ghambir. I am sure that this was not something the Kiwis were expecting. Dhoni formed the anchor at one end allowing Sehwag followed by Raina and Pathan to play freely. After Sehwag departed for 77 there was a small dip in the scoring rate and with Yuvraj runout for 3 Newzealand would have felt they had a chance of restricting the score.
Raina walked in to join the captain in the middle and what happened for next twelve overs put Newzealand completely on the back foot. Raina played a brilliant innings. When he came on to bat the game was still in balance and India needed a good partnership. Dhoni and Raina added 110 in just 74 balls to put the Kiwis out of the game. Raina was out after scoring 69 of just 39 deliveries. It seems like Raina is at last fulfilling the potential he displayed when made his debut few years back.
278 to win of 38 overs was always going to be tough for the home team. They lost 4 wickets for just over a hundred when the rain stopped play for the second time. When the players came out the batting team needed an impossible 105 of 46 deliveries. Few overs later NZ found themselves 9 down with just 132 on the board when harbajan struck thrice in four balls. Daniel Vettori with Ian O’ Brian made sure that the home team arent bowled out. NZ finished on 162 for the loss of 9 wickets going down to the visitors by 53 runs.
India yet again turned in a clinical performance with both the batting and the bowling clicking well for them. Praveen Kumar swung the ball consistantly and troubled both the openers and Zaheer as always was consistant. Munaf Patel needs to step up in the absence of Ishant Sharma. Ishant will be out again for the second game in the westpac stadium at Wellington giving Munaf another opportunity to prove himself. India would most probably go with an unchanged team barring any injuries. NZ though have an injury scare with Brendon Mccullum and may think of playing Tim Southee in the place of Kyle Mills as the latter had a horrible first game. The hosts have a great record at the Westpac stadium and have won their last 5 ODI’s played here.
Daniel Vettori would want a better performance from his bowlers and would hope that they can draw level in Wellington. Dhoni and India though would want to take a 2-0 lead to put more pressure on the Kiwis.
Cricketers not safe anymore
Posted on: March 4, 2009
It was one of the darkest days in cricket history. A cricket team was targetted by the terrorists which was deemed as not possible by the Pakistani politicians when India decided to pull out of the series. Pakistan cricket which was already in the doldrums after International sides refused to tour there received a great setback. There has been lots of speculation in the aftermath of the attacks regarding the security provided and stuff but the reality is that the damage has been done. It will be difficult for Pakistan to bounce back from this disaster.
The Srilankan cricketers were really lucky to have survived the attack and it was only due to the bravery shown by their bus driver they escaped with minor injuries. The Srilankan’s were one team who always wanted to travel to Pakistan and what happened to them was attrocious. Srilankan cricketers are humble and friendly. Even when they are the opponents its hard to hate them. Its really unfortunate that this has to happen to them after they had graciously accepted to tour Pakistan after India had pulled out. Six srilankan players were injured during the attacks including the captain Jayawardane and the vice captain Sangakkara. Thilan Samaraveera and Tharanga were the worst affected and they were fortunate that the bullet just hit them at an angle that it couldnt penetrate.
As said in the media cricketers are soft targets for the terrorists and this will for sure put fears in the mind of teams around the world. This actually can have far greater implications on pakistan and rest of the subcontinent. Western teams would think twice about touring even India and Srilanka after these attacks. This has been the first instance of a cricket team to be targetted directly. As Harsha said in his column in Express India ICC have to take some harsh decisions regarding the WC. They have to stand up and behave like the leaders which they havent been doing all these years.
My prayer goes to the families of the security personnel who were killed protecting the pride of their country and the bus driver who was unfortunately killed during these attacks. This is an unfortunate incident which has made sure that cricket will not be played in pakistan for quite sometime now and unless there is a miracle in the next two years the WC 2011 might not happen there too. I salute the bus driver Khalil who putting his life in line drove the Srilankan players to safety. If not for him this might have been a bigger tragedy. I also salute the Srilankan players who in spite of going through a traumatic experiance handled themselves gracefully. Hopefully we will see these humble and great cricketers well soon on the cricket field doing what they know best.
Cricketers not safe anymore
Posted on: March 4, 2009
Srilankan players prepare to leave the Gaddafi stadium on a military helicopter
It was one of the darkest days in cricket history. A cricket team was targetted by the terrorists which was deemed as not possible by the Pakistani politicians when India decided to pull out of the series. Pakistan cricket which was already in the doldrums after International sides refused to tour there received a great setback. There has been lots of speculation in the aftermath of the attacks regarding the security provided and stuff but the reality is that the damage has been done. It will be difficult for Pakistan to bounce back from this disaster.
The Srilankan cricketers were really lucky to have survived the attack and it was only due to the bravery shown by their bus driver they escaped with minor injuries. The Srilankan’s were one team who always wanted to travel to Pakistan and what happened to them was attrocious. Srilankan cricketers are humble and friendly. Even when they are the opponents its hard to hate them. Its really unfortunate that this has to happen to them after they had graciously accepted to tour Pakistan after India had pulled out. Six srilankan players were injured during the attacks including the captain Jayawardane and the vice captain Sangakkara. Thilan Samaraveera and Tharanga were the worst affected and they were fortunate that the bullet just hit them at an angle that it couldnt penetrate.
As said in the media cricketers are soft targets for the terrorists and this will for sure put fears in the mind of teams around the world. This actually can have far greater implications on pakistan and rest of the subcontinent. Western teams would think twice about touring even India and Srilanka after these attacks. This has been the first instance of a cricket team to be targetted directly. As Harsha said in his column in Express India ICC have to take some harsh decisions regarding the WC. They have to stand up and behave like the leaders which they havent been doing all these years.
My prayer goes to the families of the security personnel who were killed protecting the pride of their country and the bus driver who was unfortunately killed during these attacks. This is an unfortunate incident which has made sure that cricket will not be played in pakistan for quite sometime now and unless there is a miracle in the next two years the WC 2011 might not happen there too. I salute the bus driver Khalil who putting his life in line drove the Srilankan players to safety. If not for him this might have been a bigger tragedy. I also salute the Srilankan players who in spite of going through a traumatic experiance handled themselves gracefully. Hopefully we will see these humble and great cricketers well soon on the cricket field doing what they know best.
Collection of my thoughts
Posted on: February 19, 2009
- In: tennis | Test match | Twenty20
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Collection of my thoughts
Posted on: February 19, 2009
- In: Cricket | Cricket and Sports | Entertainment | Immigration | Music | tennis
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The Indian team with the trophy in SL
AR Rahman with the Golden Globe
I have had a frustrating last few months which came to an end yesterday with the visa approval. For all of us here the extension process has been a real long and frustrating journey which controlled our thoughts for all these months. I have decided to put in a summary of the happenings in the last few months about which I was planning to write about.
Indian cricket team’s successful 2008 and the NewZealand tour
I would like to begin with the exceptional season the Indian cricket team has been having since they won the Perth test match last Jan. The only blip being the test series in Srilanka. The Indian team under Dhoni has performed really well and are in top 3 in both forms of the game. The recent series in SL where Dhoni’s men won 4-1 further emphasized their raise in the shorter format of the game. The Indian team has found great bunch of youngsters who are hungry for success and want to win every game. Having said all that Dhoni’s great test is just around the corner, the tour of NZ. This will be his first full tour as a captain of the Indian team. India would be looking to win the test and the one-day series against the Kiwis which will not be an easy task.
The Kiwis have had a good series against the Australians recently where they drew the one-dayers 2-2 and lost the one-off Twenty20 by one run. They will be full of confidence and would be hoping to drive their home advantage to trouble the Indian team. The Indians on the other hand would want to erase the memory of their disastrous 2002/03 tour to the Kiwiland by turning in good performances in the both forms of the game. If India play to their potential they should win the series. The series gets underway with the first of the 2 Twenty20 games next wednesday. Lets hope that the series is competetive and may the best team win.
Slumdog Millionaire and A R Rahman
Musical genius A R Rahman made every Indian proud when he received the Golden Globe award for the best original score for his song “Jai Ho” in Danny Boyle’s award winning movie Slumdog Millionaire. There has been lots of speculation in the Indian media reagrding the movie as well as A R Rahman’s music claiming that both are over-rated. Few people in the media have slammed the movie and some also said that it has shown India in a poor light. As far as I am concerned the movie was just okay and was nothing great but thats my opinion. To be frank its a movie made by a British director in India and if Hollywood calls it as the best movie of the year then so be it. I dont think that this movie showed anything wrong about India.
At least the movie was made in India. How many bollywood directors make movies in the slums of Mumbai? How many Indian directors who commented on this movie can make a movie which will prove otherwise? Actually no one cares. Its just that this movie has become so big that people have decided to cash in on its popularity. The Johars and the chopras have stopped making movies in India and few more directors probably will follow suit. I guess we have to treat SM as a hollywood movie which has been made in India with Indian actors, thats about it. We have made so many substandard movies in US and UK, they dont claim those as theirs and slam it in the their media when we give awards to those movies. So lets just be realistic, Hollywood thinks its the best movie of the year so thats where it ends.As far as the award to ARR is concerned I am really proud of him and his achievements. He has put Indian music on the world map.
Whether this is his best composition is open to speculation but there is no denying the fact that he deserves all the accolades he is receiving right now. Lets not unnecessarily dissect the music and enjoy the success of one of the finest composers in India. Congrats to ARR on his Golden Globe and hope he wins Oscars too.
Tennis in India
Tennis in India received a tremendous boost when Yuki Bhambri won the junior Australian Open title earlier this year. His victory along with the performance of Somdev in the Chennai open gives great hope to the Tennis scene in India. Mahesh won yet another mixed doubles championship, this time with our own Sania Mirza to make this the most memorable Australian Open for the Indians. Sania though continued her horror run in singles when she was beaten in the second round. Hopefully Somedev and Yuki can take the Indian Tennis forward and make a successful transition to the senior level.
Thats all for now from me. Lets hope that India continues to shine in 2009 and we have more awards and titles to add.
- In: IPL
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I am kind of baffled by the articles floating around in the British media, blaming IPL for England’s poor performance against WI in the first test. It was like the media had already an excuse made up well before the start of the series “If something goes wrong blame the IPL”.
England had one poor session in the test match, eventhough humiliating, it can happen with any team. The England performance in the last year or so have been poor and their batting had been a suspect even before the series started.
I know that winning the Ashes is the pinnacle for the English players but just doing that will not make them No 1 in test cricket. England has to do a serious scrutiny at the reasons for their capitulation on the fourth morning rather than taking a easy way out by blaming the IPL for their loss.
I dont see any of the other teams complaining about IPL who have more players signed up in this years competition in comparison to 4 or 5 English players. This is the attitude which will make sure that the English team never becomes the best side in the world in any form of cricket. Beating the No 1 side in one series does not guarantee top spot in the rankings. England needs to realize the same pretty fast otherwise they will be left way behind.
- In: Cricket | Cricket and Sports | IPL
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Struass walks back after being dismised in the second innings
I am kind of baffled by the articles floating around in the British media, blaming IPL for England’s poor performance against WI in the first test. It was like the media had already an excuse made up well before the start of the series “If something goes wrong blame the IPL”.
England had one poor session in the test match, eventhough humiliating, it can happen with any team. The England performance in the last year or so have been poor and their batting had been a suspect even before the series started.
I know that winning the Ashes is the pinnacle for the English players but just doing that will not make them No 1 in test cricket. England has to do a serious scrutiny at the reasons for their capitulation on the fourth morning rather than taking a easy way out by blaming the IPL for their loss.
I dont see any of the other teams complaining about IPL who have more players signed up in this years competition in comparison to 4 or 5 English players. This is the attitude which will make sure that the English team never becomes the best side in the world in any form of cricket. Beating the No 1 side in one series does not guarantee top spot in the rankings. England needs to realize the same pretty fast otherwise they will be left way behind.
India gain a slight advantage
Posted on: December 11, 2008
- In: Uncategorized
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India gain a slight advantage
Posted on: December 11, 2008
Strauss scored a magnificent century on day 1
England finished on 229 for the loss of 5 wickets on day 1 of the first test match in Chennai. The fact that this series is going on after the Mumbai attacks is really wonderful as this would help to shift the focus of the people in India. England had a great start to the day when Pieterson called right at the toss and decided to bat first. Everyone knows that the key to success in India is to bat first and bat big. England did the first part right but let the advantage slip by scoring too slow and losing too many wickets.
The tourists at one stage were 164/1 and were looking good for a big first innings total but to finish on 229/5 was a poor effort. The fact that Paul Collingwood got a rough decision to be incorrectly given out by Billy Bowden did not help their cause either. While rest of the English top order looked scratchy, it looked as though Andrew Strauss was batting on a different pitch. Batting beautifully throughout the day he scored 123 before getting out caught and bowled to Amit Mishra.
Eventhough England batted poorly, nothing can be taken away from the Indian bowling on a flat batting track. As Harbajan rightly pointed out after the days play England could have easily scored 300 at the end of the day. Zaheer’s brilliant spell with the old ball and Harbajan’s twin strikes made sure that India finished up with a slight advantage on day one.
England still have Flintoff and Matt Prior in their ranks and they would be hoping for a total of 350-400. Day2 is going to be vital for England’s chances in this series. India would be hoping to get an early wicket to put pressure on the lower order. Its going to be an interesting day of test cricket.
India hang on as Kumble retires
Posted on: November 4, 2008
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