One of Those Rare Warm-up Matches!!

Top 2 ODI teams- Australia and India, playing their first world cup warm up match. It was an inconsequential game, but one definitely didn’t expect this type of batting performance from the no 2 ODI side in the world. My God! What a Collapse! 54/1 to 138/8. It was such a disappointment for a huge home crowd of Chinnaswamy Stadium. Some later heroics from Pathan, Ashwin and Nehra saw India crawl past 200 but the first 6-7 batsmen failed big time.

Dhoni mentioned at the toss that Sachin Tendulkar and Zaheer won't take part in this warm up game, so it was upto Sehwag and Gambhir to get off to a nice start. Sehwag started cautiously capitalising on his statement to build the innings, but couldn’t last long. Gambhir fell to a beauty from Bollinger. Kohli and Sehwag tried unsuccessfully to build a partnership. One could see a terrible communication between the two resulting in so many mix-ups; luckily they got away with it. Kohli holed out in the gully to Mike Hussey and then ‘the great Indian collapse’ started. Yuvraj came in and got out. Sehwag and Dhoni got a good partnership going but that too for a very short period of time. Then Dhoni dragged a Hastings delivery onto the stumps. 8 balls later Sehwag fell after a well-made fifty. Then Raina, Bhajji and Chawla got out within 2.2 overs. Pathan and R Ashwin put up 49 runs together. Pathan looked his usual self stroking the ball all around the park before launching two huge sixes in a David Hussey over but fell in the same over trying to go for the third one. The last wicket added 27 valuable runs and the Indian Innings came to an end on 214, a total which never looked to be a challenging one for this Aussie batting lineup. But the game was just half finished.

Watson started the Aussie reply in style hitting shots all over the park. Due to his cameo, Australia were off to a flying start going 6-7 rpo. But it was India’s best fast bowler tonight- S Srisanth who got the break-through for India. Watson, trying to heave the ball over mid-off, couldn’t clear Piyush Chawla who moved quickly to his left to take a sharp catch. Australia were 51/1 after 7.5 overs at this stage. In came Ponting who looked set to take his team to victory. His partnership with Paine was very crucial as one more wicket at this stage could have made Indian comeback in the game a lot easier. They were going along pretty nicely before the spinners were introduced. The trio of Chawla, Ashwin and Bhajji along with a part timer in Yuvi began to slow down the pace of the Aussie innings. Batsmen felt the need to accelerate the run rate for there was no boundary hit for 50-odd consecutive deliveries. This brought the fall of Tim Paine who fell trying to clear long-on. His wicket opened the gates for the Indians in the game. In the next over, Chawla got rid of Clarke (0) who dragged the ball onto his stumps. This wasn’t going to satisfy Piyush Chawla who was in the mood for securing his place in the final 11 for the world cup matches. He came back in the 29^th over to get the wickets of White and Hussey off successive deliveries, but sadly couldn’t get a hat-trick. This didn’t end here for Chawla as in his next over he got Hastings who edged to Kohli at slips. Aus 148/6 in 30.4 overs. In the meantime Ponting completed a well-made fifty but sadly kept losing partners at the other end. Johnson showed some resistance at the end but Bhajji and Ashwin came and ended the Australian innings on 176 with some quick wickets.

India were out of the game till the half way stage in the second innings. But a dramatic collapse of the Aussie middle and lower order, caused by the Indian spinners, cost Aussies this warm-up match. Piyush Chawla bowled like a dream and was very well supported by Harbhajan and Ashwin. Ashwin was getting turn and bounce from the pitch big time. It was really great to see India defend a small total quite ably. No doubt, pitch assisted their spinners but it was the skill of the spinners and some questionable shot-selection from the Australian batsmen that brought about the Indian win. India must keep this winning momentum going and keep complacency at bay.

Cheers!! J