India - The Proud Triumphant!

Sitting at the place I hate the most, my desk at the office, I was staring at the monitor!
"India requires 13 runs off 6 balls" read the comment on a famous website....! In the next 5 mins, I was frantically refreshing the page to know the outcome of the match! All of a sudden, someone shouted "Chak Diya India!".....ALAS! I knew it was all over and India has clinched the series against all odds!

This win was very special..not because Indians beat the "sledging"Oz, but that they handled the pressure really well than most teams have (in australia) and came out at the top! It would be an understatement to say that the aussies, well known for handling the pressure of a "final" match, were in shambles in both the ODIs, more so in the first match! They never expected a young Indian team to stand upto their challenge and thrash them in the own back yard. Probably their over-confidence ate them up and they realized it a bit too late in the second ODI!!

As I said in an earlier post.......CONFIDENCE was the key to India's over-whelming success run at the finals of the CB series. I'ver never seen Sahin Tendulkar bat with such fevour in recent times......he seemed a changed man......and the aussies had no way to stop him! While Praveen Kumar, who has played only in 5-8 ODIs, showed his capability by ripping through the australian top-order with amazing ease, Piyush Chawla marked the arrival another fielding sensation with one 'brilliant' catch in each of the finals! These youngsters 'believed' in their capabilities and when one possesses self-belief, nothing can deter one from achieving the goals!!!

People may speculate that the two "sharmas" (Ishant and Rohit) are the find of the series.....no wonder they are.....but they have to be watched closely in the upcoming series against South Africa, another tough opponent, before going overboard and making them heros..!

The real find of the series, in my opinion, is the aggressive nature and the confidence of the players combined with a great team spirit...

I saw numerous debates on news channels on whether "India is the new champion in world cricket"....I feel this is ridiculous.....to be a world champion...a team has to be consistent atleast 80 percent of the times and at all venues it plays....Remember, it took a decade for the australian team to reach where they are today!

Indian cricket team, I feel, is only at the beginning stages and has a really long journey, before it can be crowned the ultimate king in the gentleman's game!! What do you say??

India should WIN the 2nd final!

Predictably, the OZ are under immense psychological stress after their stunning defeat at the hands of the adorable Indians in the CB series final (1st ODI). Just a day before the match, Ponting, in one of his columns, mentioned that "Third final won't be needed"!! All he meant was that the team winning the first ODI would inevitably win the second one too. He, probably, was super-confident that his "champion" team could overcome the young Indian side with amazing ease, which was not to be so!

With India winning the first final, the OZ now realize that they need more than their sledging to come back in the series. Perhaps this is the reason the aussie spectators, who are not used to enjoy their team losing (in the recent times), and the aussie media, which is trying every possible 'tactic' to distract the Indian players, have pitched in to help the Oz, but in vain!

They criticized Sachin Tendulkar for his inability to score a ton in Australia......little did they expect him to fire all cylinders against the hosts, that too in a final!! Next, they targeted the 'turbanator' bhajji with reports claiming him showing "monkey gestures" at the crowd!! If Sachin silenced them with a magnificent hundred at the SCG (they should re-christen it as 'Sachin's Cricket Grounds' -- LOL), the ICC gave the blow by dismissing the harbhajan episode without even a hearing!

That the Oz are un-sportsmanly and desperate to win is evident from all the incidents that has happened so far in the series down under. The belief of the aussies is already in shambles and the Indians have a great chance to give it all to the team that has been the worst behaved unit in the cricketing history I've known so far!! If it was Symonds who cheated a catch in one of the Test matches, it was Mathew Hayden who sledged the 'kid' Ishant Sharma!

I am sure the aussies will try to do every damn thing in this world to win the 2nd final of the CB series. But the Indians now posses the ultimate weapon - "CONFIDENCE" to dethrone the aussies from the numero uno position and one of the 'steps' towards that goal is sealing the CB Series 2-NIL!!