Thursday, January 24, 2008

39th Test Century

39th Test Century

All the weapons of battle are lying grounded as umpires call it a day at Adilade on the day one of the forth and final test match between India and Australia. At the stumps India manage to score 309 runs in day’s play of 86 over by loosing half of the team. Cricketing experts and Indian media are favoring the Indian team for honor of the day for scoring these runs at the rate of little more than 3.5 run per over for lost of just five wickets, but if you took the fame of Indian bating line up, nature of oval strip and limitations of Australian bowling attack in these ground conditions surely you will agree with me that honors are shared between both the teams.

India started the match with positive attitude as not only included five specialist bowlers in the playing eleven but also opted to bat after winning the coin. The limitations of Australian attack become clearly visible as opening pair of makeshift opener Irfan Pathan was allowed to build a satisfactory partnership of 34 runs with the Shewag. Pressures of being dropped from ODI were soundingly reflecting from the play of Rahul dravid and Sourav Ganguli both were looked under tremendous mental pressures and dual status of being caught under the situation of neither able to concentrate on present nor assured of the future.

The day ended with a pleasure and surprise for the Indians as the cricketing God Sachin Tendulkar went on to score 39th test century in his career extended to 146 test matches. I don’t think achievements of sachin needs to be described because in my views like the Amitabh Bachan Sachin is also beyond any comparisons. The surprise of the day was not umpiring decisions as Rahul Dravid escaped from almost being LBW and Shewag was given out on the no ball of lee as people are become habituate of these mistakes by the so called 12 elite umpires of the world.

The surprise of the day was the Wicketkeeper star batsman M.S. Dhoni, who retuned back to pavilion unbeaten at 6 runs scored from 54 balls. As per the media reports Dhoni has opposed the selection of Sourav for the triangular ODI series for considering the Bengal tiger culprit of not rotating strike. I wonder what he will be thinking about self after his static show of today. Surely India was not in position of affording one more wicket after the dismissal of Laxman and Test match is all together a different ball game from the limited over format of the game but surely the number of balls faced and runs scored are not matching to any standard of hard hitting fame this wicket keeper and ODI captain hold.

In a cricketing development in the country BCCI today announced the names of franchises for the various teams for the proposed 20-20 tournament IPL the significant names and teams are Mukesh Ambani – Mumbai, Vijaya Maliya – Banglore, Shahrukh Khan- Kolkata and Preeti Jinta- Mohali. Soon the bids for cricket players [ though a few players kept in the listing icon will be away from this bid] will also took place for the tournament, which will be telecasted by SET MAX.

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