World Cup : India hammers Bermuda
India has opened their account in the World Cup, hammering Bermuda by 257 runs.
Sehwag finally came good, lashing 114 off 87, and aided by knocks from Ganguly, Yuvraj and Tendulkar, ensured that India posted a world cup record total of 413.
The ideal situation would have India batting first, setting up a large total and then skittling out Bermuda. This also would have been the gameplan against Bangladesh, but the script went horribly awry in that case. They were luckier here, as the Bermuda skipper put India in after winning the toss.
Robin Uthappa needs to show a bit more application to the job at hand. He has often got out playing airy shots, and so it was here as well, lasting just four balls, before the 200+ pound Dwayne Leverock took a stunning catch at slip. They were showing replays of earlier matches where Leverock grassed sitters, and it was amazing to see him pluck this catch from nowhere, that too one-handed.
Against Bangladesh, I was aghast to see we played the equivalent of almost 33 overs as dot balls, and we seemed to repeat that performance here, when I saw a statistic showing we played more than 120 balls without scoring, a pretty high percentage. Luckily, the carnage that followed made up for it.
Ganguly needs to rotate the strike a bit more, though, and as against Bangladesh, seemed unable to work the ball through the gaps, almost as if in a hypnotic trance. He did open up though, and got out more due to frustration and was stumped in an unbecoming manner.
Dravid, however, seemed to have forgotten that the net run rate will play a crucial role in determining which teams go through to the next round. His field placings and bowling changes were quite frankly, lousy and incomprehensible at times. India needs to learn how to be ruthless and go for the kill, rather than let things run their own course. Maybe we could take a crash course from the Aussies in how to destroy the opposition, not just “defeat” them.
We still have to play Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh has to play Bermuda, so we are not yet out of the woods. Fingers and toes crossed, though…
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