Cricket Lover: India vs England

Going into this game,India were clearly not the favourites. Captain Stuart Broad won the toss and elected to bowl. Put into bat,it was necessary for India to post a total of around 180-190. Both the teams had already qualified for the Super 8s. This time India opened with Gautam Gambhir and strangely,Irfan Pathan. However, the experiment with Pathan didn't work as he was dismissed by Steven Finn in the third over. Virat Kohli came on the crease. The duo built a steady partnership and made full use of the powerplay. The run rate was going at more than 8. But towards the 9th over they began to slow down. Kohli was dismissed in the 11th over by Graeme Swann having made a good 40. Gambhir was joined by Rohit Sharma whose strength was the Twenty20 format. They went well and maintained the run rate. Gambhir who had been batting since the beginning was getting tired. His wicket fell in the 16th over off a ball by Steven Finn. In came MS Dhoni. At this point India needed to accelerate and put up a good total. The batsmen did exactly that. Rohit Sharma raced to an unbeaten 55 off 33 balls. Dhoni was dismissed in the last over by Jade Dernbach. Suresh Raina came in but had no opportunity to bat. Sharma and Dhoni had hit the ball brilliantly and scored 52 runs in the last 28 balls. India made a total of 170 which had seemed highly unlikely in the 15th over. Craig Keiswetter and Alex Hales opened the batting for England. England received a huge blow in the very first over when Hales was clean bowled by Pathan. Luke Wright came in and hit some good shots. However, he was back in the pavillion in the third over thanks to Pathan. Eoin Morgan came in. The next two overs had some big hitting from Kieswetter. Finally, the comeback man Harbajan Singh was brought into the attack. He lost no time in claiming Morgan. The score was 39-3. Kieswetter was joined by Jonathan Bairstow. He was walking back in the next over being dismissed off a ball by Piyush Chawla. Jos Butler came in. Two overs later Keiswetter was dismissed by Chawla. That was the end of the English hopes. Tim Bresnan came in. He was dismissed by Bhajji in the next over. Captain Stuart Broad joined Butler. Butler was dismissed two overs later, all credit to Bhajji. Graeme Swann came in. He was dismissed in the same over. The comeback man had claimed 4 wickets! Broad was joined by Steven Finn. Broad was dismissed in the next over by Ashok Dinda. Jade Dernbach joined Finn. Finn hit a few shots. Finally twenty runs later Dernbach was run out by Lakshmipathy Balaji. India won by 90 runs. This was England's lowest total in Twenty20s. There were many great performances contesting for the Man of the Match, all by Indian. Finally Harbhajan Singh was given MoM for his 4-12 in 4 overs. On the other hand, England,the defending champs, would like to put behind this miserable performance and concentrate on the Super8s stage.