India vs Australia (Warm Up Game)

Aussies Demolished

A bright and sunny day at Cardiff and the match between two giants was about to begin. Indian skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni after winning the toss elected to have a bat first. The Indian batting innings was can be divided into two parts according to me. 

Indian Innings.

Karthik celebrates his century

Part 1 : Battle for Runs

Well you can say the Indian innings did not get the best of starts. M.Vijay  departed in the 3rd over of the innings. He was out LBW bowled by Mitchell Starc. India were 4/1. In came Virat Kohli, the centurion of the previous match, but even the centurion failed today as he departed for just 9 runs. OUT caught behind by Wade bowled by Starc. Next up was Rohit Sharma. He hit two lusty fours to gain confidence and was looking good and easy at the crease but alas! he wanted to play with a ball swinging inside and unluckily chops it on to his stumps. The ball would have missed by a long way had he left it alone. India now were 39/3 and in came the Chennai Savior Suresh Raina but he too did not trouble the scorers much and had a duck attached beside his name at the score board. Wickets kept on falling and Dhawan stood on one side watching it but  he too lost his patience at the end and played a rather strange pull short toward mid on only to be caught in the 30 yard circle giving Jhonson his first wicket. Now the score card read 55/5 and now you can clearly understand why this part is named as battle for runs.

But as we know, every cloud has a silver lining. Infact the Indian team had two. Mahenda Singh Dhoni and Dinesh Karthik.

Part 2 : Battle for Wickets

This part of our story has two heroes. The two wicket keeper batsman of India. Dinesh and Dhoni (D2). So as we saw the Australians celebrate the 5 wickets, we also saw some very gloomy and desperate faces in the Aussie side for the next 30.2 overs.

These two put up a partnership of 211 for the sixth wicket before Dhoni departed for an astounding 91 of 77 balls innings. Karthik remained unbeaten on 146 of 140 balls. These two manhandled the Australian attack and sent them to every parts of the ground. I doubt if any part was left to be hit inside the ground. Dhoni before departing made sure that this partnership had done the damage required. Jadeja at the end played a mini cameo making 14 of just six balls to make sure India crossed the 300 mark. Dinesh Karthik in his 146 run innings hit 17x4 and 1x6 and Dhoni hit 6x4 and 4x6. May i remind you that Karthik was dropped on 110 by the skipper George Bailey which made 30+ runs difference in the total.

At the end India put up a huge total of 308/6 ,thanks to Karthik and Dhoni

McCay and Starc got 2 wickets each and 1 each for Jhoonson and Faulkner.

Australian Innings

Australian innings for me was full of boredom. 9 Australians could not even make it to the double digit figures. The top scorer was Adam Voges who made 23 of 49 balls and second best by Phill Hughes who made 14. The rest just came in and went away. At the end Australia could only manage 65 runs and lost by a humongous margin of 243 runs. I've really never seen Aussies losing so bad before. Four of the 11 batsman were OUT by chopping the ball on to their stumps. Pity!!

Star of Indian bowling was Umesh Yadav who rattled the top order taking a five wicket haul. His final figures being 18/5 in 5 overs. Ishant Sharma took 3 for 11 runs and Ashwin got 1 wicket. Indian pacers truly played to their potential today.  Just the right time for Indian pacers to get into good rhythm. The only concern for India is the top order which as failed not once but twice. But Dhawan and Vijay are match winners, So you never know. 

#Best of Luck to India for the tournament