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Friday, September 21, 2007

India outfield South Africa to reach Twenty20 Semis

In the past, India has out-batted South Africa to win a cricket match. Sometimes they have outbowled them too. But tonight was different - besides beating the Proteas in the batting and bowling departments, India were the better side in the field too. When Dinesh Karthik plucked the flying ball from mid-air(reaction time: 0.76 seconds) to send captain Graeme Smith back, his first ball duck earlier in the evening was immediately forgiven. New-kid-on-the-block Rohit Sharma topped up his match winning fifty with a most athletic pick n throw to run out the in-form Justin Kemp. Besides these two super efforts, the Indians were good in the outfield and barring a couple of minor errors, their fielding effort today was blemishless.
While Dhoni used his bowling resources in the smartest manner, I am not too sure about this bat first policy. The new India captain is in the grips of a chase-phobia - he admitted as much at the toss; the decision to set a target worked out well for him today, but the decision should not be a function of this fear. But for that, I have been most impressed with India's new ODI captain.

6 comments:

Bhavika said...

Hey,

You have crazy number of blogs:) I saw the game last nite, SA were outplayed by India....but you can't really predict the winner of the tournament yet...shud be fun to watch the remaining games.:)

Amit Bajaj said...

yeah..but most of them are empty..i even have one called romeshpowar@blogspot.com!! You ain't doing too bad with the no. of blogs either!!

And Temptress, thanks a ton for the visit. Keep coming often - my blog loves women and not too many of that variety come its way :)

Arpit said...

Hey Amit,

I just ran into your cricket blog and was impressed with your style of writting. I have a cricket blog too (cricspeak.blogspot.com) but I think I tend to write longer blogs. I liked the way you present your point in short space. I will take a tip or two from you. :) Keep up the good work.

Arpit said...

Hey Amit,

I just came across your cricket blog and was impressed by your style of writing. I write blog too (cricspeak.blogspot.com), however, my blogs tend to be a bit lengthy.

I liked your views and how you present them in short manner. :) Keep up the good work man!

Amit Bajaj said...

Thanks a ton Arpit..this blog loves being appreciated!! I have tried my hand a few times at longer posts - a very well written long post is probably like a good Test Match, where the drama builds up over time, but then what sells are Twenty20 and short posts!!

Agyan said...

I don't have a problem with Dhoni's bat-firsts, especially as Durban has a reputation of swinging wildly under lights (we lose quite sadly out there, more so last year when we collapsed all of a sudden).

Baffling has been his batting order. Kartik at 3 was inexplicable, and while Sharma above Dhoni was a success in hindsight, it was a huge risk. And Joginder Sharma is scraping thru, I can see Gilli-Hayden belting him out of the ground.