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| Harbhajan Singh The Player of the Match |
It was India’s
biggest win in terms of margin of runs in any T20 history. It was England’s
lowest total ever in T20 history. It could be the T20 international of the
century in terms of the most dramatic turnaround with spinners dominating
absolutely. It gave Harbhajan Singh a most memorable comeback to Team India. The off
spinner had an incredible figure of 4 wickets for just 12 runs with 17 dot
balls in 4 overs. With his partner spinner, another comeback guy, Piyush Chawla
the duo captured 6 England
wickets for 25 runs. Thanks to them England crashed from 39/2 to 60/9, looking
at achieving the ignominy of being the team scoring less than the lowest ever
total of 67 by Kenya in T20 history. The
last England
pair saved that humiliation at least by taking the score to 80.
India crushed England by 90 runs in their last group encounter
in Colombo on
23rd September, 2012. Indian
skipper Dhoni seemed to have done everything right on this day. He ‘rested’ his
supposed best players—Zaheer, Sehwag and Ashwin, and inducted two spinners in
Harbhajan and Chawla with 6 batsmen to 5 specialized bowlers formula. He asked
Irfan Pathan to open with Gautam Gambhir and promoted Rohit Sharma ahead of
Yuvraj and Raina. Irfan could not deliver with the bat, but all other decisions
vindicated Dhoni.
England won the toss
and skipper Stuart Broad, perhaps taking the cue from the Indian Test cricket
disaster in his country in 2011, put India in to unsettle them with
short and bouncing stuff. Broad also opted for three fast bowlers and just one
spinner. Maybe he failed to read the slower than anticipated pitch better than
Dhoni.
Gambhir romped back into form with a well made 45 and Virat Kohli put in
another classic act of 40 runs playing exquisite shots all around the park. The
duo gave the team a momentum to build a total in excess of 180. But things
slowed down midway with English spinner Graeme Swann bowling a tight spell. Rohit
Sharma and Dhoni finally plundered 51 runs from the last four overs to take India
to a sound 170/4.
Have India
scored a good enough total? The debate was just picking up all around when
Irfan Pathan struck in the last ball of his very first over bowling out English
opener Hales for a duck. He struck again in the fourth ball of his second over
getting the other opener Wright leg before. With two expensive overs by Balaji
and Dinda in between the spinner duo of Harbhajan and Chawla came in when the Powerplay
was still on, and England
wickets started tumbling in heaps as if under a spell. The most fantastic spin
bowling in a T20 International was witnessed thus as the balls started to turn
appreciably. It was all over with more than five overs to spare. The Scorecard:
The encounter was technically inconsequential as both teams had already
qualified for the Super Eight stage. This gave Dhoni a scope to experiment and
get his best team ready to fire on the next stage. With Irfan Pathan not quite
doing well as an opener Virender Sehwag, a match winner on his day, is most
likely to come back, but Dhoni is set to have a most difficult time choosing
from Harbhajan, Chawla and Ashwin even if he sticks to two spinners. And then
the pacers, all of whom except Pathan were largely ineffectual. The choice of
one or two pacers to partner Pathan would need a lot of thinking. As India have topped the group they stay in Colombo for the Super
Eight games and the conditions experienced in this game are likely to favor the
team.
Earlier, in a cracker of a match Pakistan
defeated a fighting New
Zealand by 13 runs in Pallekele thanks to a
splendid all-round performance by Mohammad Hafeez and a superlative knock of 56
runs by Nasir Jamshed. The cricket lovers had their money’s worth as New Zealand
fought to their last breath. Both of these teams have qualified for the Super
Eight too.
Not much action till the Super
Eight starts from September 27. The big one for Indian cricket lovers is coming
on 28th September in Colombo at
7.30pm when India meet Australia. The Schedule:
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