Tuesday, September 25, 2007

World Cup 20/20 Won By India

What a cracker of the game! India v/s Pakistan in the final of Twenty20 World Cup, the perfect final game and totally unpredictable one, which India won with their outstanding team effort and positive stream of attitude.

India won the toss and chose to bat first as always. Sehwag being injured couldn’t play the great final, and in his place Yusuf Pathan was given his debut chance as an opener. Gambhir played outstanding inning of 75 runs and the second highest scored was made by young and energetic batsman from Mumbai Rohit Sharma who scored 30 needful runs just from 16 runs, helping India to put the total score of 157 runs.

The scored looked doable as Pakistan batting line up is known to chase the score and this wasn’t a huge score after all. Imran Nazir, the Pakistani opener was flying his bat all over the ground today and taking away hope of India with every shot he played. He looked so promising today that Pakistan was on driving seat when he was on the crease. But Robin Utthapa’s outstanding fielding caused the worst damage to Pakistan when he run out Nazir, the hope ended just like that.

But then were to bat Shoaib Malik, Yunus Khan and Misbah-Ul-Haq, and game was truly in the bucket of Pakistan. But perhaps, the pressure was final made the Pakistani batsmen like Malik and Yunus Khan to play bad shots and giving away their wickets, when they were needed to stand upon the crease and reach the target easily. And then India was on driving seat. Indians bowled very tightly, giving very less width to the Pakistani batsmen to play the huge shots.

But it was not going to be that easy for Indians either, as Misbah was still on the ground, who is known to hit sixes. The 16th over that Harbhajan Singh bowled, costed India three sixes by Misbah, who then again was snatching away the World Cup from India.

And it was the last over. Everyone on the ground and those watching televisions, were breathless. All eyes were on Misbah and giving surprise to all, Dhoni chose Joginder Sharma to bowl the last final over, when Pakistan needed 12 runs to win, quite a doable score in Twenty20. Truly the pressure was on both the sides and so was on Joginder Sharma who delivered very first ball as wide, when every run was counting. Dhoni had to rush to him, to pat him and ask him to bowl naturally and regularly without thinking too much.

It was truly a crucial over and all eyes stopped blinking. Now Pakistan needed just 11 runs from six deliveries. Joginder Sharma, second ball ( in fact first ball, after wide), pitched outside off stump, beating Misbah, giving no runs on the ball. Now, 11 runs from 5 balls. Game was still ON and was in the bucket of Pakistan as Misbah was on strike. Second ball to Misbah and it went outside the ground, a SIX. What a cracker of the shot that was. Now Pakistan needed only 5 runs from 4 balls, having no wickets in hand.

Joginder Sharma to Misbah-ul-Haq, out Caught by Sreesanth!! goes for the cheeky shot over fine leg, shuffles across the off, and looks to clear the fine leg boundary, its up in the air and Sreesanth keeps his nerve to take a simple catch at fine leg.

And that way, a very crucial match ended, taking away all dreams, hopes and excitement of Pakistan. But for India, it was an unbelievable win, when no one in the world thought India would reach the finals. But now to everyone’s surprise they just didn’t reach the finals, but won too! Dhoni, being captain for the first time, and winning the world cup of Twenty20 for his team.

It was truly a team’s effort. It was noticeable that Indian players have never shown such positive body language during crucial conditions.
Posted by Ajay :: 9:41 AM :: 0 comments

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