India beat Aussies, take back Border-Gavaskar trophy
The Indian team laid all demons to rest today, dishing out a 172 run defeat to Ricky Ponting’s hapless team. From the start of the day itself, it was looking an uphill task, and notwithstanding some lusty hitting by Hayden (77 off 93 balls), the Aussies crumbled to a combination of some smart bowling changes, and of course, Dhoni’s captaincy. It was also a time for goodbye as India’s most successful captain Sourav Ganguly bid adieu to the game, and did so on a high note, scoring in excess of 300 runs at an average exceeding 50.
However, I felt Ishant Sharma, who was declared the man of the series, should have been a joint winner of that accolade with Gautam Gambhir, who really kept the Aussie bowlers at bay with 463 runs in just three matches, as he missed the last Test due to a ban. Sharma of course, was simply amazing with a 15 wicket haul, the best being the one at Mohali where he bowled Ricky Ponting with a gem of a delivery.
Luckily, in this Test, the pressure was too much for Australia, but if the target was smaller, one never knows what could have happened, as Hayden was let off too many times for comfort, by Dravid and Dhoni.
I’d said earlier that Dhoni is Indian cricket’s new mascot, and if anything, this Test was a further confirmation of that. As earlier, it was nice to see that he could think out of the box and come up with some ideas to break the tedium, like bowling to an all offside field that strangled the Aussies in their first innings, the right bowling changes, and of course, luck with the toss. He also demonstrated he had a keen sense of the moment, when in a fantastic gesture, he invited Ganguly to lead the team one last time after the fall of the 9th wicket. It was superb, and compares with another one after the match was over, when he invited Anil Kumble to receive the trophy jointly with him, as Kumble was the captain when the series began.
The Aussies of course, cribbed all they could, but had to grudgingly accept that they were totally outplayed in this series. India is now the # 2 Test team, but a lot still needs to be done. Congrats, MSD & Team !!
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