After a long gap Im finally back to watching cricket again. Call it the Dhoni effect or just the fact that Indian cricket team is finally winning consistently. But cricket is not just it… frankly im watching a lot more stuff I used to watch religiously.
I can remember the match fixing scandal which took a huge bite out of my love for cricket. Then India went to the finals of the world cup and came out second best. Ever since then they have not been performing the best and frankly I went thru most days not knowing there was a match.
So what changed it all… one man Mahendra Singh Dhoni. What is so cool about the dude… you wont be asking that if you happened to catch India’s 3rd One day international(ODI) against Sri Lanka.
India went into bat requiring 298 to win of 300 balls. Indian batting was immaculate till now in the series and even though the target was a lot many believed India could do it. The first shocker came in the first over when Sachin knicked one to the Lankan keeper. In comes Dhoni… The flamboyant chap begins an innings that will be remembered for years to come. To fully understand the magnificence of the knock dont look at the highlights its just not enuf instead just listen to the post match interview of the Sri Lankan captian Marvan Atapattu.
He had toiled all day keeping and then came to bat. If you think keeping is easy consider doing 300 situps over a 3 1/2 hr period and add a little diving and running at regular intervals
If that does not satisfy you consider this… Dhoni had a score of 183 not out at the end of the match with 23 balls remaining… if he had those 23 (wtf even 10) balls he would have eazily crossed 200 runs. The second higest score was 39… yes, just 39. The knock involved 10 sixers and 15 fours that makes up 120 runs of boundaries. What does that mean… well what ever Sri Lanka did those 120 runs were almost unstoppable, considering no body can stop sixes and as for boundaries well a few of them could have prob been saved by field placing but I seriously doubt that.
To add to the fun he came out in the 4th ODI with India in a very delicate position… and he goes on to play a mature innings untill the last ten overs. Again India needed like a run a ball in the last ten and they finished it with 27 balls to spare(almost a runrate of 12 per over).
The Icing on the cake is that Tendulkar, Pathan, Dravid and Agarkar seem to be in form not to mention the consistent Harbajan Singh, Yuvraj and Viru
Looks like the golden age is shining on Indian cricket again and all I want them is to carry this momentum until the next world cup. Go India Go…