Even bleeding Aussies couldn't stop the Indian juggernaut.............

Yesterday's match was billed as a Final before finals, India taking on Australia the 3 time consecutive world champs and it was team India which prevailed in the end even with the middle order harakiri which led to some tense moments for a billion plus population. People left their office early or gave reasons by afternoon to catch the match live in their homes.....

The match was evenly poised and as said great players come to party at the right time and rise on the right occassion.  Ricky ponting what a masterful innings he played, he showed his true grit and determination by slamming a well made century against the Indians on a pitch which turned and kept low and slow.....Both the captains at the toss were unsure about how much would be a par target at the Motera stadium but still 258 was the average score all along which Australia managed to put up 260 in the end.  

 India once again opened their bowling with spin in the form of R. Ashwin, what a revelation this guy has been from Chennai....Indian selectors have faith in this young offspin bowler and he came to the party as early as in the 10th over of the match by clean bowling Shane watson with a perfect offspin delivery.  You can say the pitch was difficult to bat on by seeing Australia score just 19 runs in their first 5 overs. They were not able to dominate the bowling attack as usually they do. Skipper MS Dhoni kept changing his bowlers time and again and did not give the Aussie batsmen a hang of one particular bowler....Munaf was expensive, he also gave couple of overs to Sachin Tendulkar...where sachin was bowling after 14 ODI games.....the decibel levels hit the roof top when sachin flummoxed Michael clarke with a perfect leg spin delivery which landed on the leg stump and went past the bat outside off stump....that would have made even Shane warne feel proud.

 Apart from Haddin, Ponting and David Hussey rest all players like white, Mike hussey and clarke were completely out of form or were unable to play spin and even zaheer....what a bowler he has been for India lately....he gets you wickets at mercy, he is even more a deadly bowler when the ball gets old and a master of reverse swing exponent and with suttle variations he is the highest wicket taker for India in this world cup.

After Australia putting up 260 on the board, it was India's turn to get those runs and Sehwag and Sachin started their innings as usual....Sehwag somehow completely looked out of sorts the time he spent in the middle, may be he has still some issues with his troublesome knee of his...but Sachin was at his usual best and he played a masterful innings by pulling, cutting, those wonderful drives on both the side of the wickets, it looked surreal and showed his determination to win this match for India at any cost....but his innings came to an end with a good delivery from Shaun tait if not he was wayward all day with his bowling.....

Then there was a stage where India had to consolidate and just play 50 overs to win the match without loosing too many wickets, but as you know there was still some action to be left India giving 2-3 wickets unneccessarily in the middle...first was Virat kohli who hit a full toss ball straight to clarke's throat and then it was the slew of misunderstandings within a span of 5 minutes where Gambhir got himself in trouble on 3 occassions and Aussies missing twice to run him out but the 3rd time they were lucky and it was a disaster for India as India were in a spot of bother as Gambhir was looking good. Then Dhoni hitting a rising delivery from Brett lee straight to clarke in the point region....Brett lee is the only bowler who looks like taking a wicket for the Aussies...rest all johnson, tait and Jason krejza were all just about doing their job....Infact what led to aussies downfall was due to the lack of quality spin bowling.....

Then it was left to Yuvraj and Suresh raina to resurrect the Indian middle order downfall....yuvraj singh what a player he has been for India lately especially in this world cup he is like a knight for team India, coming to party when the team is in trouble and winning games with his all round performance....After this match I think he is the perfect allrounder that India were looking for all these days, the 5th bowler who can bat, field and bowl. And inclusion of suresh raina who is a good finisher showed his class when the team needed him badly.

It was a monumental win for India, avenging the 2003 worldcup final which India lost badly to the Australians, I think no other team would have achieved this feat....it had to be India and India came up with a better plan and grit to topple the world champions out of the world cup in the quarterfinals.

 Now awaits the mouthwatering clash of the tournament on wednesday 30th march 2011....Its India v/s Pakistan....the mother of all cricketing battles, a battle which makes life come to stand still and people from both the countries gearing up for the match like anything, and all the social networking sites are abuzz with status updates quoting "30th march 2011.....should be declared as a National Holiday" its that kind of  feeling people are having at the moment and it will be a National holiday for all the cricket lovers in the country...you will see streets empty like never before....Its India v/s Pakistan people...leave everything aside and this one cricketing battle which you never want to miss and take your eyes off.....switch on the TV and throw the remote away :)