First take a look at these pictures:
When Virender Sehwag stepped in to bat today, little did he know that inspite of it being a belter of a track, it was not his day. When a person is blessed with a miracle, he seldom gets to share the accolades with others.
That actually did not turn out to be the case as Dinesh Karthik, Yusuf Pathan and MS Dhoni would also be hailed for their efforts today.
Today, 24th February 2010, is the day Sachin Tendulkar became the first man to score a double century in all of Limited Overs Internationals. Ever. That’s almost 40 years of cricket. Viv Richards, Gary Kirsten , Saeed Anwar, Sanath Jayasuriya, MS Dhoni, Saurav Ganguly, Matthew Hayden and Charles Coventry could only come close.
There are loads of people claiming that if anyone deserved it, it was Sachin. I disagree. Not because he did not deserve it, just because saying such a thing oozes empathy towards the person in question. Sachin Tendulkar needs, nor wants any empathy, sympathy or any other relevant pathy.
He sets his own targets and goes about achieving them. He attains almost all of them, then hunts for more. 3 and 3 quarter hours on the field batting, and the hunger to be a part of the game was still there, he wanted to field for the remaining 50 overs. He is still fielding.
35 years and 10 months old, this man is not getting any younger. Aptitude wise, and apettite wise, he is not getting any older as well.
From the moment he middled his first ball, I was sure this was one of them special innings. I woke up my roommate when Sachin was on 40, and shouted that he was playing the innings of his lifetime. Just because the innings was not for the cause of chasing a huge total does not undermine the romance in it. Not one bit.
From that point on, it was a treat to find new adjectives to describe his fluid strokeplay, brute power, maraduring instinct, and gazzele like running. Batting on 190, he almost outran MS Dhoni.
The Journey from 194 to 200 was a study in temperament. He knew that he was this close, that us fans were not able to breathe because of the tension. He did not take the Sehwag route. No, that would have been too risky. Instead, he ensured that all our prayers went answered. That is how god functions. In our words, that is how Sachin rolls.
Twice this year, he came close. After the innings against NZ in NZ and against Australia at Hyderabad, all he did was learn from the apparent mistakes. His mistake? He got out.
Batting on 199, he got a gentle half volley 4 feet outside his off stick, and he guided it to third man for his double. For our double. One ball later, Dhoni hit a ball to the boundary and called for a single. Sachin refused.
God created the world in six days, and then he rested.
Sachin scored the 200 in 147 balls, and then he rested.
Amen.
my hands are shaking right now, i am not sure i will be able to type it clearly. All I want to say is
HAIL SACHIN
SEHWAGOLOGY TAKES A BACK SEAT
200*
WOW
Cricket was never this beautiful
God
Off I go to watch the highlights…
pics soon
The two teams face off again. On another belter at Gwalior. I reckon I need to find the origins of the word belter as soon as I churn out this post.
Both teams have already arrived, and the game begins in about 200 minutes from now. Gwalior has been a great hunting ground for the Indians. That is the end of cricketing clichés in this post. India have won 7 out of 9 games they have played here at the Captain Roop Singh Stadium.
We have gone at length about the three reasons why South Africa lost the First ODI at Jaipur. I reiterate:
- The bails did not fall
- Sachin saved a controversial boundary
- SA’s security fears
All the three things are inherent independent random incidents and mentalities and nothing can be done by the visitors to change any of that. Of course they can hope that if a ball hits the stumps at 135k, the bails should have the courtesy to pop out by themselves.
So what can be changed to bring about a victory?
Hashim Amla?
He is anyways in for this game, and its more of a psychological thing with him being around, something like an infallible hero who is only produced when there has been a loss. Like they were not expecting the loss in the first place. Maybe.
Here is hoping South Africa have some luck on their side, and lose to India anyways.
Talking about India, they seem to be a jolly alright bunch of International Cricketers. They knew they would win, and win they did, so what if they had to break sweat along the way. This is their neighborhood, they know these flat tracks well. Another 300ish score awaits them unless they have their regular maintenance collapse. That would be unlucky.
Team News:
India (probable) 1 Virender Sehwag, 2 Sachin Tendulkar, 3 Virat Kohli, 4 MS Dhoni (capt & wk), 5 Suresh Raina, 6 Dinesh Karthik, 7 Yusuf Pathan, 8 Ravindra Jadeja, 9 Praveen Kumar, 10 Ashish Nehra, 11 Sreesanth/Sudeep Tyagi
South Africa: (probable) 1 Herschelle Gibbs, 2 Loots Bosman/Hashim Amla, 3 Jacques Kallis (capt), 4 AB de Villiers, 5 Alviro Petersen, 6 Mark Boucher (wk), 7 Albie Morkel, 8 Wayne Parnell, 9 Dale Steyn, 10 Johan Botha, 11 Charl Langeveldt.
now do not tell me you saw that before…that is so totally not copied from cricinfo to the last spacebar
have fun folks. the runfest awaits
it is that time of the year again…the laziness creeps in. Blogging is not for the lazy though.
Yes, this is about the India vs South Africa game at Jaipur, which was supposedly stolen from South Africa because they were too busy looking after their security to claim a win.
However, that did not dampen the self righteousness of the Indians, who happily went back to the hotel with the win in their Nike pocketses. Their precious win, gifted to them by the
The man of the match (officially) was Ravindra no-ipl-for-me Jadeja, bit he was not the reason India won the match.
Don’t forget that India got the better of South Africa due to two instances in the game. No, make that there.
The First One
49.3 Langeveldt to Nehra, FOUR, 146.5 kph, whoah, this is unbelievable, a yorker on off, 136kmh, Nehra misses, the ball kisses offstump and races away for four, the bails don’t fall, that is bizarre, Langeveldt can’t believe it
That is because Langeveldt did not take his physics lessons seriously.
Watch the video first:
then look at this still:
it shows where the ball hit the stump, sideways. It can be easily inferred that it hit the stick about 1/3rd of the way up. That is the centre of all forces for a vertical cantilever. If a ball hits there, there will be minimal vibrations. Hence Nehra got saved by Science, not God. Moreover, India got 4 runs.
India won by 1 run.
The Second One
49.5 Praveen Kumar to Langeveldt, 3 runs, 106.0 kph, drops the slower ball short down the leg side and he swivels and pulls wide of short fine leg, Sachin does his best to dive at long leg to save it, the third umpire takes a look after Sachin pulls it back, close call, very close call, after a hundred replays it’s not declared a boundary
It was about 93 short of a hundred replays, but it was totally uncertain. You seem to wonder when and when not the benefit of doubt should go to a batsman. So Sachin saved a run.
India won by 1 run.
The Third One
South Africa’s security concern.
India won by 1 run
