Team India's best moments during Diwali Week
Diwali, the popular festival of lights, has been a joyous occasion not only for the entire nation but also for the Indian Cricket teams in the past. Diwali seems to bring out the best out of Indian cricketers.
With Diwali just a day away, it is worthy to recall some of the moments when Team India light up a million hearts through their performances during this specific festive season.
#1 India vs England, 5th ODI at Kolkata, October 2011
This was the fifth match of the series and India had already won the first 4 matches and was looking for a clean sweep. While Dhoni was the captain for Team India, England were led by Alastair Cook.
England won the toss and put India into bat. The Indian openers Ajinkya Rahane and Gautam Gambhir gave India a splendid start, as they put on 80 runs for the first wicket. With the Indian score on 80, disaster struck for India as they lost 3 wickets at the same score. Rahane, Gambhir and Virat Kohli departed with the Indian score on 80.
Dhoni had to be hurried to the batting crease and he played a captain’s innings of 75 off 69 balls with 3 fours and 4 sixes. Manoj Tiwary(24), Suresh Raina(38) and Ravindra Jadeja (21) gave able support to Dhoni and in the end, India reached a par score of 271.
In reply, the England openers Cook (60) and Craig Kieswetter (63) managed to score 129 runs for the first wicket in just 20 overs. At that stage, England looked like achieving a consolation win and preventing the whitewash. However, the first wicket of Cook brought about a collapse in the England batting order. Cook was bowled by an express delivery from Varun Aaron. That opened the floodgates as the Indian spinners Ashwin and Jadeja sliced through the England middle-order.
Ashwin finished with 3 for 28 while Jadeja took 4 for 33. England, from a comfortable position at 129 for no loss, collapsed to 176 all out. Jadeja for his all-around efforts was adjudged the man-of-the-match. Dhoni scored a total of 212 runs in the series without being dismissed once. Dhoni was the deserving player of the series.
For India, it was payback time as they swept England by a margin of 5-0, the same margin by which they lost to England earlier in the year in England.