My Bloglogue April 5th 2005

Funnel clouds and Tornado are never spotted in India; however yesterday about half a billion people witnessed Tornados and Twisters that made land fall in the costal town of Vizag/Waltair Junction/Vishakapatanam., however you want to call it. Yes, Pakistanis were caught between powerful tornados and the strong winds that continued till the end of the Indian innings. Even few Small sized tornados managed to rattle Pakistani bowling during the tail end of the Indian innings.

As mentioned yesterday Toss was vital, Gangully won again for India. While walking in Sehwag and Sachin had a game plan, Sachin was supposed to give quick strikes to this partner and watch the developments, however Sachin was run out by a direct throw from Yuhana. Bad luck to Sachin, he was out by just 2mm, just enough for the replay to spot. In my opinion he missed a wonderful batting wicket. When Sachin departed in the third over India had already made 26, Yes, “Ubayaam” the inform destroyer INS Sehwag, that had docked in the port of Vizag few days ago.

Indian think tank made a drastic change that clicked. Instead of out of form Gangully, Dhoni, the new wicketkeeper was promoted to the number 3 slot, just to do some pinch hitting. It worked for India, he not only pinched the Pakistani bowling and he did more, he trashed every bowler to every part of Vizag. India had an unbelievable run rate of +/-7 all through the innings. First three overs from Sami cost him about 33 runs, while Sehwag hit Afridi for 4 consecutive boundaries. India scored 50 in about 5 while Viru completed this 50 in about 26 balls.

Inzi and his men were totally out of sync, the only Pakistani bowler with some juice was Naved Ul Haasan, and he was going for 6.0 while donations from others were pouring in double figures. INS bomber Sehwag scored 70 runs in about 40 balls, his strike rate was around 200 aeronautical miles. In short - "Dharama adi".

Sehwag was out when he tried to lift over midwicket and was caught. Inzi assumed the agony was over, but! Wait, it was the Calm before another storm; Gangully came in and tried to play positive cricket, but lost his stumps again. Pakistani celebrated this calm before storm, that’s when Dravid joined Dhoni , that’s it, Runs started to flow at will and in this process Dravid scored 50 and Dhoni completed his first 100 for India.

Later Dhoni perished after a breezy stormy thundery 148, but it was not yet over, the gritty Indian Tail Wagged big, Yuvraj (15 off 10), Laxmipathy Balaji (17 off 13) and Zaheer Khan (17 off 9) pushed the score to 356 for 9. Balaji and Zaheer added couple of huge sixes to their account. 356, was a big ask for any team in any ground under any condition, Pakistan came close, but India won at ease and I also think Indians played better planned cricket and took the match right royally.

After the Banglore test loss, I mentioned that Indians need 2 wins to be back on the pedestal, yes it is here, time to adore them.

Ps: I happen to hear a track from Mumbai Express, Poo pothadhu, by Sonu Nigam, Kind of a Smooth Jazz fusion number in Tamil. The Jazz kit sounds very familiar, may be someone played it live using electronic drum kit. Raja has given one more hit, I also speculate may be his eldest son helped him in this; I do hear shades of Karthik Raja. Most sounds seemed to be from Korg Keyboards, Triton in particular the Reverb is so familiar. Before speculating more, I should the CD by this weekend; I will post a clear review then.