Thursday, October 29, 2009

Dhoni make India bounce back


Mahendra Singh Dhoni, captain of India hit a brilliant century to win the game for his side. He hit a splendid 124 off 107 balls and had two excellent partnerships, first with Gautam Gambhir (76 off 80 balls, 6 fours) and then with Suresh Raina (62 off 50 balls, 6 fours 1 six).

It was all started with Ricky Ponting won the toss and elected to bowl first. Virender Sehwag (40 runs off 31 balls, 6 fours 1 six) smashed Aussie bowlers all over the park, however Sachin Tendulkar missed out today, as he scored just 4. Sehwag then joined hands with Gautam Gambhir and they took the score to 67. Here, Sehwag gave a catch off the bowling of Mitchell Johnson. The returning Yuvraj Singh came and started hitting strokes all over the park. But his stint was short lived, as he scored run-a-ball 24 and was caught by Peter Siddle off his own bowling. Then came the ‘Captain Cool’. He started taking quick singles, hit the odd boundary and along with Gambhir, he took the score to 216. This partnership witnessed the fifties of Gambhir and Dhoni. Dhoni and Gambhir hit the Aussies to all corners of the ground. With a confusion between both of them, Gambhir’s innings ended with a direct hit. Gambhir made 76 runs off 80 balls, with 6 fours. Once Gambhir departed, Dhoni attacked the Aussie bowlers even more fiercely; his partner was Suresh Raina. Raina also supported his captain with some lusty blows. Both of them added 136 runs off 93 balls. Raina’s fifty came in just 42 balls. Dhoni completed yet another ODI hundred in style by hitting Shane Watson for a big six. He hit one more six on the very next balls. His century came off just 94 balls, as he finished on 124 runs off just 107 balls. India finished on 357-7 off their 50 overs. With Dhoni’s century, it was the first century by an Indian captain against Australia. Mitchell Johnson took 75-3.

In reply, Australia started in a similar fashion and soon lost the wicket of Tim Paine, when he was dismissed off the bowling of Praveen Kumar. Shane Watson and captain Ricky Ponting took the innings from there, but were never able to cope with the rising run rate. Soon, Watson perished off the bowling of Ishant Sharma. Soon, Praveen Kumar dismissed Ricky Ponting and Australia slipped further down. Within a few overs, it was clear that Australia would not be winning this match. Indian spinners, especially Yuvraj Singh and Ravinder Jadeja bowled well and never allowed the Aussie batsmen took the upper hand. Michael Husey was the highest scorer for Australia, as he scored 53. Ravinder Jadeja took 3 wickets for 39 runs. Ashish Nehra took 2 wickets, so did Ishant Sharma.

Indian Captain was the obvious choice for the Man of the Match award.

With this victory, India level the series 1-1 and would be keen to win the third game and take 2-1 lead in the series.

1 comments:

Riz said...

Dhoni is fascinating always

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