What do you do when you enter a tournament with the favourites tag and have a score to settle with the team, that dumped you out of the last tournament. And to add to the so-called woes you would be playing them in their backyard. India would have no better opportunity to test their preparedness for the tournament than this
After the Toss was done and Shakib had chosen, the numbers doled out were: 27 out of 38 matches were won by the team batting second. What they forgot to state that many of Bangladesh’s wins had come against the likes of Zimbabwe and Ireland
When the match did get underway , Sehwag provided the most rollicking of starts by driving the first ball he faced to the cover boundary. It was the bowlers who blinked first by pitching it wide of the off stump and on the pads of the batsmen in the middle. No wonder that India were off to a brisk start
Just when it looked like the pair in the middle would carry on for a long time, Sehwag did something that would have propelled him into the hatelists of many millions back home. He turned his back on Sachin Tendulkar as a result of which Tendulkar had to return to the pavilion early. Gambhir came to the crease and immediately the pair set about by spreading the field and nicking the extra runs
Sehwag looked to occupy the crease and knew the runs would come if he stayed there. The ominous thing for Bangladesh was that, Gambhir’s wicket was followed by a period of manic hitting especially after the batting Powerplay was claimed. Sehwag had imposed himself upon the match and looked good for a double century. He ultimately fell when he was looking to go inside out and ended up dragging a ball onto the stumps
What looked to be a total in excess of 385 stopped at 370 because of the economical last three overs. Kohli reached a well-deserved century of the penultimate ball of the innings. To think of, this was his first World Cup match
When the teams were rolled in the morning, the stand out point was India picking three seamers. So when the chase started everybody was waiting to watch how the seamers would go about the things. Instead of the usual pyrotechnical Tamim, it was Imrul Kayes who got Bangladesh off to a flyer. He took full toll of Sreesanth and Dhoni had to ring in the bowling changes. With the kind of t he score that they had on board, winning was never going to be in doubt. Patel lived upto the expectations of his skipper and took a four wicket haul. Yuvraj and Pathan did bowl 15 overs but with sterner tests ahead Dhoni needs to pick another spinner in the team
As expected at the break time, India did not have to break a sweat to win the match and the batting looks good to carry India to the farther stages of the tournament
PS: A friend of mine reminded me that the last time an Indian scored 175 in the World Cup, India went on to win the World Cup!!
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