da dobrowin： The better team won the final encounter at Guwahati, taking the oneday series 3-2
da cassino online： Erapalli Prasanna20-Mar-2002The better team won the final encounter at Guwahati, taking the oneday series 3-2. Between the two teams, India was by a long distancethe superior side. Injuries to a few key Indian players, by all means,did help the Zimbabweans in the series. It took a miraculous knock byDouglas Marillier at Mohali and a disciplined spell of medium-pace byDouglas Hondo at Kochi to help the tourists pull off two good wins inthe series.
The match was all over the moment India set their rivals a stifftarget of 334 runs. I have mentioned in my previous columns that theIndian bowling looks good when they have a big score behind them.There were moments in this series when I wondered what was going on.The Indians made Zimbabwe look like a very good team.
Zimbabwe choked at Hyderabad, and they did so again at Guwahati. Itwas well within the realms of possibility that Zimbabwe could wintheir first overseas tournament. Perhaps the pressure got the betterof them. I am forced to conclude that the Zimbabwe think-tank focusedmore on what not to do to lose the final match than what had to bedone to win the game. Cricket is first and foremost a game ofconfidence and dealing with pressure situations.Zimbabwe faltered at the final block rather spectacularly. Theirbowling had always been the weakest link, and to add to their woes,their best part of the game – the fielding – also crumbled underpressure. Dinesh Mongia and Yuvraj Singh exposed the limitations ofthe Zimbabwe bowling by unleashing an onslaught from which they neverrecovered.The Indian innings was once again well spread out; there were usefulcontributions from the top and middle order. Zimbabwe’s body language,during the carnage, was one of despair, and they knew that the gamewas slipping away from them. In the tail-end of the innings, Indiawere allowed to score 111 runs off the last eight overs.The match was all over the moment India set their rivals a stifftarget of 334 runs. I have mentioned in my previous columns that theIndian bowling looks good when they have a big score behind them.There were moments in this series when I wondered what was going on.The Indians made Zimbabwe look like a very good team. But clearly,India were much superior to the tourists, and it was really only amatter of believing in themselves.This one-day series win without the likes of Sachin Tendulkar,Virender Sehwag, Javagal Srinath and Anil Kumble will give newconfidence to the team. The youngsters like Mongia and Yuvraj Singhproved what a modicum of faith in their own abilities could do.It augurs well for the Indian team that we seem to have a good pool ofplayers with the right mixture of youth and experience. With AjayRatra doing well behind the stumps, the future of Indian cricketsuddenly looks very bright. The Indian team, led by Sourav Ganguly,has a very big chance of winning the Test series in West Indies. Mybest wishes are with the boys.
