Kohli's ton and another Indian win against Pak in WC

Day 2 of Cricket World Cup was to be dramatic ~ the first common thing across Indo-Pak border is work  will come to a grinding halt  when there is a match.  The game overtakes everything else.  If it is a working day, many will fall sick and others at work also will only be checking scores !!   There has been so much of hype – India has never lost a match to Pak in a WC – the fact is they have played only 5 times – the teams did not meet in 1975; 1979; 1983;  1987 & 2007.  In 1992; 1996; 1999; 2003 & 2011 – Pak lost to India and Sachin played in all these matches – thus today, it was to be different at Adelaide. 

Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen (1792 –  1849) was the queen consort of the United Kingdom and of Hanover as spouse of William IV of the United Kingdom. Adelaide, the capital city of South Australia, is named after her.  The other match was at Hamilton, most populous city of the Waikato Region, in the North Island of New Zealand.  The Waikato River is the longest river in New Zealand, running for 425 kilometres through the North Island. It rises in the eastern slopes ofMount Ruapehu, joining the Tongariro River system and emptying into Lake Taupo, New Zealand's largest lake. The city encompasses a land area of about 110 km2  on the banks of the Waikato River. 

At Adelaide, India scored 300 for 7 – first a good stand between Shikhar Dhawan (73) and Virat Kohli (107) and then Raina (74) – Pak lost wickets regularly and lost by a big margin of 76 runs – making it 6-0 in WC for India. 

Photo credit : bcci.tv

Meantime at Hamilton, SA unusually struggled against weaker Zimbabwe.  In the first 10 overs they could make only 28 –  and were 83/4 at one stage; however a late surge by Miller  138* & Duminy 115* took them to 339/4.  Zimbabwe fought bravely – Hamilton at Hamilton -  Hamilton Masakadza 80 and , Chibhabha 64 took them up to 277 losing by 62 runs.

For India, Kohli made a grand century – the first in Indo Pak encounters in World Cup.  With this Kohli has 22 only behind Sachin Tendulkar (49); Ricky Ponting (30); Sanath Jayasuriya (28) and Sourav Ganguly (22) – Kohli is the quickest making them in just 151 innings !

Cricinfo reports that the last  time an Indian spinner bowled three or more maidens in a World Cup match before Ashwin in this match was our own Srinivasan Venkataraghavan  against West Indies in 1979. There have been only five such instances including Bishan Bedi's eight maidens against East Africa in 1975. No bowler has bowled more maidens than Bedi in an ODI.

With regards – S. Sampathkumar

15^th  Feb 2015