God is on Dhoni’s side

India began very well in yesterday’s ODI against Australia at Bangalore. But the all-too-familiar storyline began to play out yet again, as one partnership frustrated our bowling attack. Worse, our attack leaked runs like a sieve. Michael Clarke made his highest ODI score of 130 runs (he seems to relish playing at Bangalore, which, if memory serves me right, is also where he scored a test century on debut when Australia last toured India). After having lost their top 4 batsmen relatively cheaply, Australia amassed a potentially match-winning total of 307. I say “potentially” because these days, many teams (India included) regularly score at over 6 runs an over. And remember, this was a 50 over match and not the shortened, 20 over version.

But the way India started, one did not get the confidence that we would make it. Both Lee and Johnson bowled with fire and accuracy and pretty soon, we lost Sachin, who looked woefully out of touch. That was when I think God decided to intervene and save us the blushes. After all, we had just won the world T20 championships less than a week ago, and it wasn’t fair that our crcketing demigods be exposed for being what they are- mere mortals.

I hope this fright brings the team back to terra firma and we wil be more focused on the basics at Kochi, where we play the second ODI on Gandhi Jayanti. Gandhiji was an apostle of peace, but don’t count on either team giving (or getting) any quarters on Gandhiji’s birthday.

Here’s to a good game of cricket. And as always, may the better team win!

Another Indian is a world champion!

Almost 7 years after he first became world chess champion in December 2000, Vishwanathan Anand has again become world champion. The icing on the cake is that he is now also ranked #1 in the world. Chak de India!