The Game of the Decade!

It was a match unlike any match we've played against Australia for many years. Heres are some moments from a great game of cricket..

India started at a slow pace with just maintaining a RR of 6 in first few overs. Here Sehwag, injured within first two overs walks back to the pavillion after being caught behind. He scored 9 of 13 balls.

Yuvraj came at 2 down and showed Aussies the blitz he started with England. He was in pristine touch, middling every ball and hitting sixes on will. His innings of 70 of 30 balls was a major factor in India posting a fighting total on board.

MS Dhoni for the first time in the tournament played what can be called truly as a captains knock. He was his flambouyant best, sans the hesitancy he has shown in initial overs throughout this cup. He scored 36 of 18 balls.

India finished at 188/5 in 20 overs.

Australia started off well despite some fantastic bowling by Sreesanth and RP singh. Sreesanth first bowled Gilchrist and then later in this picture, he's reacting after dismissing Hayden in similar fashion. He put up his usual histrionics and finally got fined by match referee. He finished with just 12 runs in his 4 overs with two very important wickets.

After Sreesanth it was time for Irfan Pathan to pick another important scalp for India and thus we saw Symonds off-stump being hit as he tried to make some room for a shot. With this wicket India was back in the game.

After the Symonds wicket clark and hussey went within 11 runs being scored and India was in with a good chance to win by now. In the end with 3 overs to go and the required score looking within reach of Aussies, Harbhajan came up with a great over taking a wicket on the first ball and bowling a tight over. Then Dhoni showed excellent maturity and gave the penultimate over to RP Singh even though he had only Jogindar Sharma as the other option. So instead of keeping the best bowler for last over he gave RP the 19th over and the move payed brilliantly with RP bowling a gem of an over. Finally with six balls to go and 25 to get australia was in a bad position. Joginder bowled what probably was his first dot ball and gave what probably was his first smile in so many days. He finished the over with Aus still needing 15 runs. India had beaten the Aussies and set up a dream final for the first T20 world cup.

Glorious, Depressing and Fickle uncertainities of Cricket

Who could've predicted the outcome of super 8 match between Ind and SA, not many people would put there money on India beating SA and that too so convincingly.

Now, the three words i'v used in the title are for three different teams, first Glorious is for India for their gritty batting which saw India recover from 38-3 to 153 in the end, some very accurate bowling by RP and Irfan and finally better fielding than what India does on most of the days.

Depressing is the word for the luck of South Africa in big tournaments, time n again success elude SA in the later stages of tournaments. They were playing brilliantly in this T20 cup, one loss and they'r out of the tournament. And who can forget the famous tied semifinal between SA and AUS where SA was again the team packing bags early. Anyways, SA is a great team, unarguably up there with AUS, n i'm sure luck can't dodge them forever. They'l get there due soon.

And now the fickle part, this refers to the sentiments of New Zealanders watching Ind Vs SA match. At the start of the match they would've been praying that SA simply win the match putting India out of the cup and securing the Semifinal berth for NZ. But soon into SA inning when they were 31-5, NZ must've started cheering for India to stop SA before 125 run mark, which would've put SA safely into semis. Now when Boucher and Morkel put up a 50 run partenership for 5th wicket, again the NZ allegiance would'v shifted to SA to just win the game. But India with some inspired bowling aided with pretty ok feilding made sure that NZ finished the day while cheering for them.

India had achieved what a few expected them to, a semifinal berth and a thumping victory to put SA out. Lets hope this good run continues and India fights against AUS in semis, coz zim and pak have shown that aussies are not unbeatable.

Good Luck India!!