5 best bowling performances by an Indian in ODI Cricket
Indian fans will always remember the high-quality innings that have been played by our great batsmen. We have come across many of the top knocks by Sachin Tendulkar, arguably the biggest icon of the game, on numerous occasions. People also are aware of the Indian ODI Captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s innings in the Wold Cup final or Kapil Dev’s 175 vs Zimbabwe in the 1983 World Cup. Be it Virat Kohli’s blazing centuries against Sri Lanka and Pakistan or Rohit Sharma’s record-breaking double hundreds, these are just few of the many to name.Spare a thought for the bowlers now. Start to think about the Indian bowling and how many equally great, if not better performances with the ball can you recall by the Indians? Full marks to people who make the count to at least a dozen.India has never been known to be a country producing quality bowlers. Even when it comes to the One Day International Circuit, there are very few names that come up in the list among the great bowlers of the world. It becomes very difficult in this format to cut the runs being scored and at the same time pick up as many wickets as possible to put the opposition under serious trouble. We would list out a few performances who could not make the cut and then go on to describe the best five of the others. Honorable Mentions:- Madan Lal’s 3/31 vs West Indies in the final of the World Cup, 1983-Lord’s.- Sourav Ganguly’s 5/16 vs Pakistan, 1997-Toronto- Venkatesh Prasad’s 5/27 vs Pakistan in the super six game of the World Cup, 1999-Manchester- Bhuvneshwar Kumar’s 4/8 vs Sri Lanka in a must-win game in the tri-series, 2013-Port of Spain- Murali Kartik’s 5/27 vs Australia, 2007-MumbaiLet’s look at the one’s that made it to the top 5 performances’ list and get to know more about the same.
#5 Sachin Tendulkar\'s 5/32 vs Australia, 1998-Kochi
This was the opening match of the Pepsi Triangular Series in India back in 1998. India with the help of an unbeaten century by Ajay Jadeja, piled up a mammoth 309 in their allotted 50 overs. The great opening pair of Mark Waugh and the dangerous Adam Gilchrist got Australia off to a flying start, when they brought up a quick 100 run partnership for the first wicket in a mere 11 overs. India fought their way back into the game, but Steve Waugh and Michael Beven put the Aussies at 203-3 at one stage after 31 overs.
Whenever Sachin tried to turn the ball, he would often extract a lot of movement off the pitch. The unknown Kochi track, which hosted its first-ever ODI, gave him the assistance for the same. Giving the ball the loop and catch it back of your own bowling, the off-break, dart it down the leg side, a loopy deceiving leg break and a trademark Shane Warne delivery: these were the variety of the deliveries he bowled to get the five wickets of the Australian middle order.
He got the wickets of Steven Waugh, Darren Lehman, Michael Bevan, Tom Moody and Damien Martyn-all great ODI batsmen and some of them great finishers of the game as well, Bevan in particular. At one point in the game, he even narrowly missed his hat-trick.
The smiling magician, who spun a web over the Australian batting, chuckled as he got a fiver against his all time favorite opposition in Australia. Sachin fans would you mind seeing this performance over his great knocks someday, atleast for a change?