It was a dismal outing for the Indian team once again. The 1st one day international at Melbourne had a start that belied the end result. India had Australia in some kind of a bind after knocking down 2 of their top order batsmen at the end of 11 overs with just 35 on board when rain stopped play. Australian weather is as fickle as their Met . Department is precise. Even one week ahead of the match they had predicted rains on the evening of the day-and-night match. The forecast was for bouts of rain between 4:30 and 6:00 and thick black clouds had enveloped the sky above the MCG right after 4p.m. There were three bouts of rain and the 50 over match was shortened to 32 per side. When the game started at 6:18 pm, the sky was clear blue with shreds of white strewn carelessly across.
The first two overs bowled by part-timers Kohli and Raina belied what was to follow. The specialist bowlers Ashwin and Jadeja were carted to all parts of the grounds thanks to some inept bowling. The commentator could not hide the derision in his voice when he called Jadeja ‘the 2 million dollar man’, the price Jadeja had attracted, at the previous day IPL auctions. Jadeja bowled like a benevolent billionaire conceding 19 runs in his last over. Between Ashwin & Jadeja they gave close to 90 runs in their 7 overs and the match was well & truly lost then and there.
I would not say that the Indians were very bad on the field, considering the train-wreck of a Test series that they had had. Any team would have lost their keen edge after such all-round thrashing. I thought the fielding was much better than what we could get to see during the test series. The one catch missed in the outfield was a very difficult one and Rahul Sharma did everything right but hold the ball in his hands.
When the Indians walked in to bat, there was a lot of expectations around Sachin making a big score if not get his century of centuries. I was secretly hoping to crow at my friends back home about having seen it live. But it was not to be. The catch that Ponting , pushing 37, took to dismiss Sachin is still mirrored in my memory. It was from a slightly wide-ish gully, the ball was played firmly but was in the air, Ponting had to dive to his right and forward. When he took the catch his torso and legs were above his shoulders and neck, an extremely difficult maneuver from a close catching position. Such exploits by one member in the team is sure to rub on to others in the field, Australia was on top of the match right from that moment and never did they allow their grip to slip. Our batsmen also contributed to the situation. Their inability to negotiate bounce on such fast tracks was again on display. Gambhir, Raina , Rohit all are masters of anything directed to their waist and below. But ask them to handle balls rising from good length to their chin, they do not look their part. Kohli with the bat and Vinay Kumar & Rahul Sharma with the ball impressed me. You could see ‘attitude’ in their body language. Kohli was negotiating the pace and bounce without streaky nicks thru the slip cordon and Vinay was bowling with purpose and bite. He was clocking 137-138 km consistently and once even went up to 143. He was well rewarded by his 3 wickets for 19 runs in 7 overs. Rahul Sharma is more in the Anil Kumble mould, not a big turner of the ball, but delivers it from a good height and uses top-spin effectively. The batsmen could not take liberties with him as he bowled a strict stump-to-stump line.
Seeing the Match first time in one of greatest venues of Cricket somewhat compensated for the insipid display by our team. The Spider Camera , a red rag for our BCCI, was virtually omnipresent . For the uninitiated, Spider Cam is a camera held aloft above the playing area by 5 wires running through it. The wires are kept taut but their differential tension moves the Camera back and forth , up and down all over the ground up to the height of the stands of the stadium. It follows the bowler in his strides and rises heaven-wards when the ball is about to be delivered. It moves closer to the field when the ball is picked up in the deep. I kept wondering what the rule book would have for ‘obstructions in the field’ caused by a Spider CAM.
I also saw for the first time something that in my memory had never happened before. With the match shortened to 32 overs, the number of overs that could be bowled by the bowlers were limited to 7 for any two bowlers and 6 for the remaining three. Dhoni, running out of bowling options, probably lost sight of the fact that Rahul Sharma had completed his 7 overs and handed over the ball to him. Rahul had bowled 2 balls with runs scored off him, when this fact came to light. The umpires call off his over and applied the ‘laws of restitution’, as it were, and corrected the scores to what they were before the over started.
We could get tickets in the stand that was perpendicular to the pitch, the worst place to watch a cricket match. At the ticket counter the official said ‘we are now selling tickets only for Bay 31 to Bay 35’. When I got into the stadium, I saw the Bays that afforded best stump-to-stump views were part empty while the Bays that were close to mine were fully sold! I could not understand the logic behind palming off these seats ahead of the better ones.
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