Toss Won By: India
Result: Australia Won by 84 runs
Man of The Match: Brad Haddin
Australia 306/6 (50 Overs)
Brad Haddin 87(69) Sreesanth 9-0-67-3Andrew Symonds 87(83) Irfan Pathan 10-0-47-2Mathew Hayden 75(89) Zaheer Khan 10-0-55-1India 222 allout (47.3 overs)MS Dhoni 58(88) Brad Hogg 9.3-0-40-3Robin Uthappa 41(30) Stuart Clark 6-0-14-2Rahul Dravid 31(48) Michael Clarke 9-0-35-2The champions are back.. And back they are with a bang.. If anyone still had some doubts about who had the better team in this series, this game must have well answered that question. An emphatic almost flawless win.
Rain 0r no rain or maybe some rain - All this seemed to confuse Dhoni as he won the toss and sent Australia in on a perfect batting strip. Something you don't see happening too often in Kochi. But the rain stayed away and a delayed start was the only effect the rain in the past week could have on the game.. Australia went in with a unchanged side from the first match while Indians had a couple of changes as Robin Uthappa and Harbhajan Singh replaced Saurav Ganguly and RP Singh.
Dhoni seemed to have made a right choice when Australia lost two quick wickets with less than 10 runs on the board. Gilchrist and Hodge both failing once again.. Then walked in Clarke and steadied the innings along with Mathew Hayden who seemed to be playing conscious of his two previous dismissals - avoiding outrageous shots and sticking to the basics. Just when it seemed that Clarke would goo n to repeat his performance in the first game, Dhoni pulled out a brilliant stumping to get rid of him. Michael Clarke losing balance and falling over giving just enough time to Dhoni to get rid of the stumps after a brilliant take down the leg side. Symonds then joined Hayden and both big-hitters held their cool - running quick singles and attacking the spinners. Indian spinners were disaapointing today and that allowed Australia to build a solid partnership. Hayden fell to a inswinging Pathan yorker and just when you thought that India could claw back into the match, the Aussies one again displayed a key quality that true champions possess - bench-strength.
In walks a man - Brad Haddin who does not get too many matches to play for his side just because they have a certain Mr Gilchrist - the best wicket-keeper batsman ever donning the gloves. He got to play in this series only because of a few injuries and pull-outs. After a good show in the first match as well, he was in his elements today stroking a wonderful 87 off 69 balls.. He was the difference between a score of 275-280 and 300+ He just took over after Symonds fell after a good knock of 87 and surely would have demoralized the Indians a bit with that end to the innings
India needed a good start, but Gautam Gambhir fell early to a wonderful incoming delivery by Johnson clipping the top of off-stump. Robin Uthappa played a courageous knock and pushed the run-rate a bit but wickets kept on falling as Sachin Tendulkar and Yuvraj Singh flattered to deceive. Both getting starts, hitting a six and then getting out. After Uthappa fell lbw to Clark it was always going to be a uphil ltask from there-on.. Dravid and Dhoni hung around for a while and with everyone knowing what Dhoni si capable of towards the end of a innings, there was always a chance.. Rahul Dravid got out to a peach of a catch just centimeters from the boundary line as he tried to hoist Hogg for a six. It got more height than distance and Mitchel Johnson kept his nerves and pulled it out just a hair's breadth from the boundary. After that it was a laborious task as India were never in the hunt and kept on losing more wickets. Even the crowd started leaving the stadiums - so obvious was the result. India crawled along to 222 before being all out in the 48th over. Some incidents at the end - Harbhajan Singh having a good chat with Michael Clarke after being dismissed and Sreesanth being hit straight in the head by a Dhoni powerstroke must have kept the umpires awake. Anyone could have easily slept, such was the state of the game at the end.
Many supposedly qualified people read "experts" are saying that this is the real cricket and Aussies are showing who the champions are in the real cricket... Aren't these the same people who ridiculed ODI till few years ago and said Test Match Cricket was the "real" cricket. I don't get this deal about "real" cricket. Agreed that a test match may demand more skills per se than a one-day cricket or twenty20 cricket. But twenty20 demands some other skills that a test match may not demand. So why don't we just stop comparing different forms of cricket and force our opinion on other people. Sit Relax and enjoy the game - be it twenty20 or a test match. Just ask yourself a question - Do I enjoy what I am watching? If yes than I will watch it and enjoy it to the fullest. There are many more aspects to it.. Will write a exclusive post on that sometime..
So Aussies are 1-0 up in the series with 5 more matches to go... I still expect the Indian team to come back and do well in the series. probably batting first would help their cause a little.. Its over to Hyderabad now.. 5th October
