Team India suffers a slow, painful death at Edens

It is believed that if a person dies after struggling for long, he must have done some wrong earlier. In the same fashion today, Team India lost the match at an excruciatingly slow pace today, paying the price for its earlier wrongs. Any other loss would not have insulted more than this ball-by-ball humiliation. When you need to score more than a 100 runs in the last few overs, you don’t give away as many as 2 maiden overs in the closing stages! It was simply astonishing!

The bowlers can’t be blamed today. Apart from a few dismal overs earlier, the bowling actually gave our ever-so-strong (on paper!) batting line-up a ray of hope. The death bowling, which has been our worry since a long time now, seemed a lot improved. In Ishant Sharma, finally India can see a bowler capable of finishing away the tail; a feat our bowlers have not excelled in since legendary Anil Kumble called curtains on his career.

Pakistan openers impressed once again. Jamshed, with a scintillating century and Hafeez continuing his splendid ODI form. The middle order fell prey to some quality bowling by the Indians. Bhuvneshvar Kumar, the ‘one match wonder’ failed to impress as he leaked more runs than the balls he bowled. Umar Gul contributed with a valuable run-a-ball 19 down the order. If not a deciding factor in the win, it definitely helped lift morale of the team which was shattered by the sudden batting collapse.

Though they had a decent partnership, the Indian openers were quite shaky as there were many instances of confusion while running between the wickets; a trait for which the pair of Gambhir and Sehwag were rated quite high earlier. After the departure of Gambhir, all the batsmen fell prey to exquisite display of seam and swing bowling by the Pakistani bowlers. Junaid Khan in particular, was splendid to watch as he displayed how destructive swing bowling can be. Irfan, though he failed to bag a wicket, was superb in the overs he bowled and Umar Gul, the seasoned campaigner, foxed two of the most dangerous batsmen – Sehwag and Yuvraj – with cunning bowling. Bowling the bouncer from round the wicket to Yuvraj Singh was indeed a master plan. As the batsmen around him fell like a pack of cards, one man stood tall. Mahindra Singh Dhoni, our ever so cool captain, was in such a cool mood that he forgot the heat that was rising in the terms of the Required Run Rate! But one man cannot win a team game if the other members are too hesitant to contribute.

The 40th over (1,W,0,W, 0, 0, wd, W) from Saeed Ajmal sealed the fate of the match in favour of Pakistan and took away all the hopes of Team India. After that, it was a slow torturous route to a sure loss. But the loss did not come until Junaid Khan cleaned up Ishant Sharma with yet another beauty and put an end to Team India’s sufferings.

Well played, Pakistan. Team India really needs to look into their batting issues.