Saturday, March 12, 2011

Big Ticket contest ends in heartbreak for India

The meeting between India and South Africa was billed as the Big Ticket match, and it certainly lived up to its name. In a match where the pendulum swung to and fro on several occasions, a winner could only be decided after 99.4 overs – and it was the visitors who emerged victors by 3 wickets.

India, who opted to bat first on perhaps the flattest batting track one has witnessed in the competition so far, only managed to post 296 runs on the board, after looking set to post a total close to 400 mid-way through the innings. South Africa, having staged an astonishing comeback in the first session, got off to a sound start before a middle order collapse tilted the match back in favour of the hosts. However, Faf du Plessis (25) and Robin Peterson (18) kept their nerves in the dying moments to steer their team past the finish line with two balls to spare.

Sachin Tendulkar’s 48^th ODI century, his rollicking opening partnership with Virender Sehwag (73) and a shocking collapse were the highlights of the Indian innings. South Africa have had this history of crumbling under pressure in the “Big” matches, and the pressure seemed to have gotten to them on this occasion too. Virender Sehwag’s boundary off Dale Steyn off the first ball of the match added to South Africa’s woes, and they seemed to lose focus from thereon.

Sehwag and Tendulkar feasted on the South African bowlers – pace and spin alike – and got the team off to a rollicking start. 100 of the innings was raised in the 12^th over and both batsmen were looking good for a big innings. Such was South Africa’s poor showing in the Quick Start overs that the Castrol Index actually gave them a negative marking for their Bowling.

While Sehwag was his usual self, ready to pounce on any length and width offered to him, Tendulkar played the perfect innings. When Tendulkar is on song, one can expect to see the straight drives right out of the copy book, and he did that on a couple of occasions during this knock – just an indication that he was “in the zone”. The duo added 142 runs in just under 18 overs. Graeme Smith, fast running out of ideas, introduced du Plessis into the attack, and the leg-spinner struck, almost against the run of play when he dismissed Sehwag.

Gautam Gambhir (69 from 75 balls) then added 125 runs in the company of the Little Master, and though the run-rate dropped, India were always in control of proceedings. However, India took the batting Power Play in the 39^th over, and the match turned on its head. Batsman-after-batsman walked in, attempted the “glamour shots”, perished, and walked back to the dressing room. In an astonishing passage of play, India lost 9 wickets for 29 runs to be bowled out for 296, with eight balls remaining to be bowled.

Dale Steyn was the biggest beneficiary of India’s largesse; the lanky paceman who was taken to the cleaners in his first spell came back for a third spell and picked up 5 for 9 from 3.4 overs. Morne Morkel (1/59), Jacques Kallis (1/43), Robin Peterson (2/52) and du Plessis (1/22) were the other wicket-takers for the Proteas.

Cut to the run-chase, the Proteas were given a sound start by the openers Hashim Amla and Graeme Smith. While Hashim Amla (India’s nemesis in recent times) was on song from the word go, playing fluent drives through covers and mid off, Smith struggled against his nemesis Zaheer Khan. The openers added 41 before Smith succumbed to his nemesis yet again, attempting to go over the top, but failing to clear the man at mid off. Amla (61) and Jacques Kallis (69) then kept the Indian bowlers at bay for the next 90-odd minutes to set up the run-chase, adding 86 runs in the process. AB de Villiers (52), JP Duminy (23) contributed useful runs, but their dismissals swung the match back in favour of India.

Just when the Indians had bowled a few quiet overs in the Extreme Performance overes and were trying to nail the match, the match once again turned in favour of the visitors, thanks to cameos from Johan Botha (23 from 15 balls) and Robin Peterson (18* from 15 balls), with the latter creaming 16 runs off the final over bowled by Ashish Nehra to seal the deal.

The story of the match can be summed up in two simple numbers; India had a shocking Extreme Performance Batting index of 8, while South Africa finished with a Extreme Performance Batting index of 38.

Friday, March 11, 2011

Bangladesh add to England’s minnow woes

A late 9th wicket partnership of 58 runs between Mahmudullah Riyadh and Shafiul Islam helped co-hosts Bangladesh stun England in front of a packed crowd at the Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium in Chittagong on Friday. After a stupendous opening partnership that set up the run chase, followed by a dramatic collapse, it was left to the 9th wicket pair to see their team past the target of 226 with one over to spare.

On a track that appeared hard and well rolled – yet didn’t offer any pace, Bangladesh captain Shakib-al-Hasan won the toss and put the opposition in to bat. England struggled to cope with the pace of the wicket – or the lack of it – as the openers struggled to get the ball off the square. Sensing England’s struggles, the Bangladesh skipper thrust his spinners into action after three-over spells for his quick bowlers. That made life that much more difficult for the English batsmen; the Quick Start overs only realized 37 runs, and the five overs of the Bowling Power Play only fetched England 10 runs.

Andrew Strauss (18), Matt Prior (15) and Ian Bell (5) perished for cheap scores. But for a 109-run fourth wicket partnership between Eoin Morgan and Jonathan Trott, England could have been in all kinds of trouble. Morgan, called up as a replacement for the injured Kevin Pietersen, impressed from the word go as he came down the track and took on the spinners, while Trott nudged and nurdled the ball and kept the scoreboard ticking. The duo brought up their half-centuries, but couldn’t convert it to big scores. Morgan perished for 63 – thanks to a brilliant catch by Imrul Kayes at slip, while Trott was dismissed for 67. The lower middle order chipped in with useful runs to help England past the 200-run mark, before eventually being bowled out for 225, two balls short of their quota of 50 overs.

The Bangladesh spinners together bowled 33 overs (conceding runs at 4.24 runs per over) while accounting for 7 of the 10 wickets to fall. Abdur Razzak was the pick of the bowlers, returning with figures of 2 for 32 from his 10-over spell which included two maidens.

Set to chase 226 on a pitch that had started to aid batsmen under lights, Bangladesh raced off the blocks. Despite being faced with a required run rate of 4.52, the hosts raced off to 58 for 1 in the Quick Start overs. Tamim Iqbal playing in front of his home crowd, took the attack to the English bowlers, dispatching them for five boundaries in his 26-ball 38, while his opening partner Imrul Kayes played the perfect second fiddle, knocking the ball into the gaps and handing the strike back to his partner.

Tamim’s dismissal – bowled by Tim Bresnan – gave England the opening, and they used it to pick the wickets of Junaid Siddique and Raqibul Hasan to put the match back in the balance. However, Kayes and Shakib-al-Hasan swung the match back in favour of their team through a 82-run partnership before the former was run out attempting a silly second run. Kayes, who’d batted well for his 100-ball 60, nudged Collingwood to square-leg and decided to chance on Ajmal Shahzad’s arm, only to be found short of the crease.

The Bangladesh middle order then collapsed in the face of some tight bowling by the English bowlers, who got the ball to do swing around just a tad. However, a late surge, thanks to a cameo from Shafiul Islam (run-a-ball 24), and his 58-run partnership with the calm Mahmudullah (21 from 42 balls) helped Bangladesh past the finish line.

England struggled with the wet ball – thanks to lots of dew in the outfield – and the English bowlers were guilty of spraying the ball around and conceded a total of 23 wides in the evening. Ajmal Shahzad returned the most successful bowler for England, returning with figures of 3 for 43 from his 10 overs, James Anderson, the leader of the England attack, had yet another wretched day, conceding 54 runs from his nine overs (including three wides which cost 7 runs when the 9^th wicket pair were out in the middle). Graeme Swann (2 for 42) and Tim Bresnan (1 for 35) were the other wicket-takers for England.

That England struggled to cope with the slow surface is conveyed through one simple statistic: In the Castrol Index parameters, England had a Batting Momentum of 260 in their innings, while Bangladesh timed their run-chase perfectly to finish with a Batting Momentum of 266.

This win means the qualifiers from Group B are still undecided; England, with five points from 5 matches remain at third, while Bangladesh, with matches against Netherlands and South Africa, are fifth with four points from as many matches.