ICC World Cup 2015: India vs West Indies - Quick flicks of the match
Rahane wears Dhoni’s pads
It was the 17th over of the West Indies innings when Ravi Ashwin was bowling to Lendl Simmons. After the first ball, MS Dhoni decided that he needed a forward short-leg and placed Ajinkya Rahane there. Since it wasn’t pre-planned, the protective equipment took some time to be brought onto the field, in a bid to avoid wastage of time and unnecessary hold up of play, Dhoni gave his wicket-keeping pads to Rahane, and kept pad-less during that over.
It was a sight in itself to see the Indian skipper’s bravado on the field. Who needs pads if the keeping technique is good, right?
Dhoni equals Dada, also overtakes him
MS Dhoni overtook Sourav Ganguly’s long standing record as India’s most successful overseas ODI captain. Ganguly, who still remains India’s most successful captain in Tests played on foreign shores, had 58 victories under his belt. By beating West Indies by 4 wickets, MS Dhoni picked up his 59th win and established him as the undisputed best in captaining ODIs.
In another feat, Dhoni’s men equalled the record held by Ganguly’s boys of 2003, by winning their 8th consecutive World Cup game across two editions (2011 World Cup and 2015 World Cup). Back in 2003, then Ganguly captained team had won 8 matches on the trot, beating some fabled sides like Pakistan, England, New Zealand and Sri Lanka to halt only in the finals against Australia.
Samuels nearly drops it
Ravindra Jadeja played a miscued pull off the third ball of the 30th over, skying one to deep square leg. Marlon Samuels, positioned there, nearly made a mess of a simple high catch as the ball bounced off his hands. It took three attempts, and a lot of anxious moments, for Samuels to finally grab the ball – giving Andre Russell his second wicket.
When Shami and Umesh returned favours
Chris Gayle, frustrated after a string of run-less overs decided to attack Mohammed Shami and skied one to a straightish third man position. Umesh Yadav, running in from a wider angle, covered multiple yards, leaped, held on to the ball in the air, only to let it go upon falling.
It was a brilliant effort, that was even acknowledged by the captain. A couple of overs later, something similar happened near deep point. The only difference was that Umesh was bowling and Shami was the catcher. It might have been a slightly easier catch as well.
WACA's bounce
It was incredible to see the kind of bounce that the surface at the WACA produced. Although most experts believed that the wicket had slowed down from what it was a couple of decades ago, it still made for exciting cricket.
On multiple occasions, fast bowlers from both sides generated steep bounce from short of good length area. A lot many of the wides on the scorecard today were over the head wides. Keepers were leaping in the air, batsmen were dancing on the crease and fast bowlers letting out wry smiles. Batsmen’s game? Said who?