Indian Ghost Continues To Haunt The Aussies

Atlast, the inevitable happens.Australia lose the Border-Gavaskar trophy 2-0,thanks to an under par Australian team that toured India this time and some luck whenever Mahendra Singh Dhoni takes on the Indian cap.After a long time,India have won a series 2-0 compared to 1-0 series victories against teams viz Pakistan (late last year) and England (in mid 2007).A delight being that Australia won the Nagpur test in 2004 to regain the Border Gavaskar trophy,a win on Indian soil after 34 years,only to lose the same at the same venue,4 years later.The man who lost the Ashes after 19 years in 2005,now can boast of having done the same in the Border-Gavaskar trophy as well.

I bet that there is some ghost that haunts the Australian cricket team everytime whenever they play India.For,even a batsman like Virender Sehwag comes up with a 5 wicket haul and bowlers like Irfan Pathan,Harbhajan Singh and Zaheer Khan of late have proved something with the bat as well.Rarely does things like this happens.With someone like V V S Laxman and Sachin Tendulkar always being there when it comes to the big stage,this time for a change,instead of Rahul Dravid,there is Gautam Gambhir who unexpectedly became the top scorer of the series,including a double hundred at his home ground at Firoz Shah Kotla in Delhi.A series that would have been 2-1 favoring India ended at 2-0.

Despite a 70 run lead in the first innings at Bangalore,the Aussies made a mess of their own game by allowing Zaheer Khan and Harbhajan Singh,after batting for nearly three days to post a so called respectable total.It looks like the Aussies are now feeling the pinch of losing star cricketers like McGrath,Damien Martyn,Langer and others at a stretch.I never expected someone like Mike Hussey to be a part of a test team,who can belt the ball like a T20 game.And KUDOS to Matt for atlast putting up a big score of 77 after a lot of over aggresive knocks.I feel it was primarily because of Matt that the ussies have had to face such a humiliation and second comes Ricky Ponting,followed by Brett Lee.

All that the Aussies could take from this series was a man of the match that was awarded to Kreza in the Nagpur encounter,despite losing the match and with it the series.A little planning would have seen the Aussies settle for a level.With 382 runs needed to win and a win being a compulsion,the Aussies just went after each and every ball.Someone like a Shahid Afridi would be seen doing.None of the Australian players, be it bowling or in the batting department have taken this series as a challenge,like it was taken by India four years back.Some fightback by the Australian team would have made the series an interesting one with both the teams not willing to give up.This was last seen only in the Border-Gavaskar series 2003 when India toured Australia.

Singh vs Singh and Kings vs Kings

It was a battle between two Kings in Chennai Super Kings and Kings XI Punjab and also between two Singhs in Yuvraj Singh and Mahendra Singh Dhoni who captained their respective sides.One team that had come off from bottom to top and the other maintaining their streak with some ups and downs in the tournament.

But some difference with so many similarities between the two teams that clashed out there was that the match witnessed what no other team in the tournament so far has been able to achieve so far.A hattrick by a man who was seen in action after almost two and a half years-Laxmipathi Balaji.Also not to mention the clash between two players who have played for the same team for years altogether.But this time one had to face the other's bowling.Muttiah Muralitharan and Mahela Jayawardane two M's.And finally similar to his team's result,Murali's result was also no different. Murali did the same to his counterpart what Dhoni did to his.

All could be forgotten but for the wicket of Irfan Pathan who was threatening to walk away with the match had he not been taken by Raina off the bowling of the local hero-Laxmipathi Balaji.Irfan scored an 18-ball 40 before the ball found the hands of Suresh Raina.The Kings XI Punjab gave away 15 runs in extras with some clever bowling off Chennai Super Kings gave away just 3.If this was not to be,the Chennai Super kings had nothing when it came to their batting for the strike rates of even the settled batsmen was not above 150.

The match result may say whatever but both the kings team put up a decent performance what-so-ever.Both threatening to take away the game from each other time and now.

Bottom To Top & From Top To Bottom

Well when the inaugural edition of the Indian Premier League started,the Kolkata Knight Riders started it all with a bang by beating the Royal Challengers Bangalore by a whooping 140 runs-which is till the highest margin of victory for any team against any opposition.But,the victory streak was limited it looks.Because,after winning the forst two matches,the Kolkata Knight Riders had nothing at their end but defeat.Likewise on the other hand,the Kings XI Punjab has had a steady progress as they were found to win the rest of the games with much ease compared to the way they lost their opening encounter against Rajasthan Royals-which is famous for the Sreesanth-Harbhajan incident.

And if there was Yousuf Pathan for the Royal Challengers making news for all the good reasons,his younger brother Irfan is not too far behind as even this man was found to put up an all round performance by capturing two crucial wickets and scoring 24 runs (lets not take into account the strike rate).And much to my surprise,it was unimaginable to see Piyush Chawla belt the ball like an Indian Shahid Afridi.The tail end batsman scored a 7 ball 21 at a strike rate of 300 which included 3 hits to the fence and one huge six.

And the match was such a close encounter that it kept the audience always guessing out there for every ball that was bowled.The Kolkata Kinght Riders captain was once again a great flop as he could only manage to come out of a duck and get struck at 5.Atleast some blistering knock of 71 saw some face saving work for the Kolkata Knight Riders.And after a series of losses,it looks like the Kolkata knight riders are going the Royal Challengers and the Deccan Chargers way.

Ryan Sidebottom-A Hattrick In Vain..

Very rarely does one come across a test match or any match for that matter where the team has a bowler taking hattrick and ending on the losing side.Ryan Sidebottom is one of those lucky guys I can say.The hattrick however helped the team a lot,for they could manage to restrict the hosts for a score of 177/9 before the New Zealand captain-Daniel Vettori declared the innings.

But,the damage had already been done by the New Zealand team,first by putting up a score of 470 before bowling out the England team for 348,taking a lead of 122 runs.A target of 300 was supposed to be too much for the English batsmen,who were found to crumble to 110 all out.The result-New Zealand won by 189 runs.

Is there any other situation where a team player has a hattrick and ends on the losing side.One such case that comes to my mind is the third test between India and Pakistan at ,Irfan Pathan being the bowler.Then we have Alok kapali who took a hat-trick against Pakistan to see his team lose by 9 wickets.

The other such instances that I can give is:
1)J.Lawson against Australia-WI lost by 9 wickets
2)Darren Gough against Australia-England lost by 98 runs
3)Petherick against Pakistan-New Zealand lost by 6 wickets