When Bangladesh appeared cruising to victory at 100 for five, needing 47
runs from the last six overs of their ICC World T20 match in Bengaluru,
a former colleague called to assure prophetically that India won't be
losing the match. (Pandya Helps India Beat Bangladesh by One Run)
One
thought it was a gambler's instinct, yet curious to know what was his
deduction. His explanation was if India lose, the tournament, for all
practical purposes, would end, taking a big financial hit!
Soon
after the game he called back to say in a triumphant 'didn't-I-say-so'
tone that he knew what's coming. His logic was startling: The tournament
can't be ruined with India out of it so soon. He refused to believe
that two most experienced Bangladesh batsmen at the crease, one of them a
former captain, could not fathom that all they needed was to put the
bat on ball and run two singles from the last three balls.
That's
how most allegations about the veracity of a key match are made and then
the evidence is gathered by depraved security agencies. Yes, it all
sounds so simple.
See the the flip side of the argument. Both
Mushfiqur Rahim and Mohammad Mahmudullah thought of finishing the game
with a big hit since they needed two runs and they could not have asked
anything but full tosses to smash. Both got the deliveries they would
have liked to hit a winning stroke. Both connected, but found the
fielders, who held their nerve, in the deep.
Still there was one
ball and all Bangladesh needed was to run a single to force a Super
Over. It's all so predictable for a non-striker to sprint down if the
striker misses to connect the ball. Mahendra Singh Dhoni knows a thing
or two about these things and he was ready after instructing young Hardik Pandya what not to do.
All
Pandya needed to do was, in his captain Dhoni's words, bowl a back of
length delivery outside the off stump to beat the bat. Pandya made sure
he did not in his enthusiasm go too far wide to be called a wide.
Shuvagata
Hom failed to connect the only ball he faced and the last man,
20-year-old Mustafizur Rahman, thought he could outrun wicketkeeper
Dhoni like he does from his bowling run-up. The 34-year-old India
captain won the race comfortably by quite a few inches to run Bangladesh
out of the tournament.
Dhoni's 'Not So Cool' Avatar
Dhoni knew the circumstances under which the victory was achieved and expected everyone to appreciate it. He did not like a reporter bringing in the pre-match calculations of winning by a big margin to improve the net run rate and pointing to the narrow win.
Dhoni
burst out, the way rarely one has seen him do, unless he found the
reporter's tone so flippant or aggressive to hit back at him for a
asking routine question. Come to think of it, Dhoni himself said that at some stage India will have to think of improving the run rate after that massive defeat against New Zealand in the opening game.
All
that the reporter wanted to know was what happened to all the talk of
India winning by a big margin and how would he rate the performance
having barely managed to win the match.
Interrupting him from making a connected question, Dhoni curtly told a startled reporter: "One
minute, I know you aren't happy that India won. Your tone and your
question say that you aren't happy with this result, okay? As far as
India winning this match is concerned, there is no script.
Dhoni
expects reporters to analyse the importance of toss, the wicket on which
his team had to bat and the reasons why they didn't make a lot of runs,
before asking questions! He himself blasted his batsmen for the loss
against New Zealand. Isn't he too harsh on the poor reporter?
Someone
should have analysed India's fielding and catching without mentioning
Dhoni's misses. Also, what does the captain think of the tweets by some
of his teammates, particularly his favourite Ravichandran Ashwin.
How
does one analyse seven batsmen, including the top six, looking good to
play big shots getting into double figures before being dismissed. Here
he defended the batsmen blaming it on toss and the conditions whereas he
did not think highly of them when the ball was turning square at Nagpur
against New Zealand.
Frankly, India should not have allowed Bangladesh even a sniff at their first T20 victory against them here. source ndtv
0 comments:
Post a Comment