Victory tastes sweet, especially
when it comes after thrashing – happy day for Indians at Trent Bridge – where at
the start of the Test Series, the tail, first Indian and then English – made history. Trent Bridge is located on river Trent, one
of the major rivers of England. Its source is in Staffordshire, flows through
the Midlands and joins the River Ouse at
Trent Falls to form the Humber Estuary, which empties into the North Se. Trent
Bridge is an iron and stone road bridge across the River Trent ~ there is town
Trentbridge which houses the Cricket ground, the home of Nottinghamshire.
Call it luck or tactical, the change seems to be working – after that
disastrous Test Series, BCCI announced that former Captain Ravi Shastri would
be the Director assisted by Sanjay Bangar and Bharat Arun as the Asst.
coaches of the team. R.Sridhar became
the fielding coach – and overnight Indian fielding and catching has improved
quite a few notches ! It was over no. 34
– part-time offie Suresh Raina was bowling – he did not even care to turn to
receive the throw from long- perhaps thought the fielder to be slow – bang came
the throw from Mohit Sharma disturbing the stumps directly and Ian Bell was
short of crease……..
Earlier Dhoni won the toss,
put England in – and they cruised – now a days – in ODI, teams are playing the
first few overs rather slowly, may be due to the fact of 2 new balls …. 10
overs 45 seems to be the norm. In the
prematch hype, Gavaskar, Ganguly, and Harsha Bhogle spoke about host of things
including spinners succeeding when pacers remove the top early – and the role
of part-time bowlers – Ganguly happily extolled that he was never a part-time
bowler … When MS Dhoni won the toss he
spoke about wanting to bowl because of "early morning help" for his
quicks. Bhuvneshwar Kumar had the ball curling around, producing plenty of
edges, he couldn't produce the breakthrough. An hour after the start, England
were comfortably placed at 75 for 0, with Alastair Cook finding semblance of ODI form and Alex Hales providing
some of the dynamic hitting he was picked for.
image courtesy : bcci.tv
~ and Dhoni this time
employed 7 bowlers – Alex Hales got out to Raina – then Dhoni used plumpy Ambati Rayudu – who tried bowling a la
Muralitharan – Cook, charged at him, missed – Dhoni doing the rest. Once the occasional bowlers claimed wicket
apiece came Ashwin and Jadeja – from 82 without loss, suddenly it became 149/6
and eventually all out for 227. Between 18th
and the 44th overs only one four was hit.
That parttime bowl was necessitated by the injury as Mohit Sharma
hobbled off the field with a leg injury in the 11th over. He came back but was not required to
bowl. That throw from deep by Mohit
claimed Ian Bell, who was run out for the 16th time. Marvan Atapattu, tops with 41 while Rahul
Dravid and Inzamam-ul-Haq have been run-out 40 times – though the no. of
matches vastly differ.
India had a methodical
chase, finishing in 43 overs with 6 wickets in hand. Dhawan failed. Rahane 45; Kohli 40; Raina 42
made runs and Ambati Rayudu remained unbeaten on 64. Ashwin was the man of the match.
After the remaining 2 ODIs
and solitary T20, India hosts WI and will play 5 ODIs, 1 T20 and 3 tests in
October-November 2014. The
match-schedule is :
One Dayers : 8 Oct – Kochi;
11 Oct – Vizag; 14 Oct – Cuttack; 17 Oct – Kolkata; 20 Oct – Dharamshala. T20 : 22nd Oct Delhi.
Test Series : 30 Oct – 3
Nov, Hyderabad; 7 Nov – 11 Nov, Bengaluru;
15 Nov – 19 Nov, Ahmedabad.
Too early to say ‘happy
days are back again’ …. Yet it is quite a turnaround from the Test Series
With regards – S.
Sampathkumar
31st Aug 2014.
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