Saturday, September 03, 2011

India Vs England 1st ODI: 3rd Sept: India Has Given Clear And Strong Signals To England

With excellent performance from batting and bowling section, India has given a clear cut signal to English ODI team to be ready for a crash. Probably omission of Sehwag, Gambhir, Tendulkar et. al. became a blessing for India when newcomer Ajinkya Rahane and Parthiv Patel opened Indian innings after India lost the toss and were invited to bat first.

Ajinkya word means one who can never be defeated. Rahane does not seem to be playing his preliminary buch of matches. The vigor, zeal, maturity and depth shows a long journey for him in Indian team. Probably he appears to be a right choice of openers for Indian next world cup team. Parthiv Patel on the other hand has shown lot of guts and sustenance through his previous series to this match.

Dravid was unfortunate to get out at 2 with a snick that missed umpire but technical review declared him out. Rohit Sharma was out for duck. All other batsmen - Kohli, Dhoni, Raina played and contributed 55, 33, 38 respectively. Patel was unlucky to get out just 5 runs short of his well deserved century.

Rahane made confident 40 which qualify him to stay for the series and play.

England innings was in doledrums when they started to bat after bowling out India for 274 at the loss of 7 wickets. Both the openers Cook and kieswetter were unable to touch double figure score and were sent back cheaply by superb bowling of Pravin Kumar.

Rain saved England in this match as it ended in a draw after heavy downpour. England were 27 for 2 in 8th over when game stopped and later called off.