Finally England has a world Cup in its Bag!

Hi Guys,

England Team enjoying the crown

England conquered the T20 world cup in style with 3 overs remaining. Australians were never in the screen from the beginning. England completely outplayed Australia. The English players were very confident right from the start. Though Aussies didn’t reach the previous two T20 world cup finals, they would have been longing to win the world cup. It was one of Aussies rare defeats in a final (I would have been more happy, if Ponting was there in the losing team).

After hitting the winning runs!

England was outstanding in their fielding. All the wickets were result of their wonderful fielding, either catches or run outs. The fielders helped the bowlers to perform well in the final (just thought about India there. They would have left half the chances). Australians recovered a little due to the big hitting Cameron White and David Hussey. But 147 was not a great score.

Collingwood did it for England with his captaincy.

For a moment I thought Australia might defend the score with their bowlers. But, the day belonged to England. Their new wicket keeper batsman Craig Kieswetter remembered me the dominating Australian wicket keeper Gilchrist. The inform batsman Kevin Pietersen joined him. Aussies were able to do nothing but watch the ball sailing past the boundary lines. Their 2nd wicket partnership of 111 drove Aussies out of the competition.

Nannes has developed so much as a bowler. He was the leading wicket taker of the tournament.

At the end of the day Aussies had something to cherish. Their women’s team had won the T20 world cup by 3runs in a humdinger against New Zealand. Our Indian Women’s team reached the semifinals, before losing to Aussies.

Other than England and Australia none of the other teams performed consistently. Sri Lanka did quite well with Mahela’s superb batting form. But, when he succumbed to Stuart Broad in the semi finals, Sri Lankans were on their way back. The other semi finalist Pakistan had a bit of luck. They performed very well against the mighty Aussies in the semifinal (I think that match led to Aussies downfall in the final). The Akmal brothers nearly did it for Pakistan, but Mike Hussey (why wasn’t he in the playing 11 for CSK in IPL) had a tale of his own.

Mike Hussey did for Australia in the semi finals. No doubt that he is Mr. Cricket.

Indians didn’t look like the 2007 team. Though many of the same players remained, they were either out of form or they grew overconfident. It seems that there is a lot of politics within the team. The team selection (both squad and playing 11) looked bizarre. Dhoni is known to be a superb captain. What happened to him? Even in IPL3 his tactics won CSK the title. In West Indies, pitches support pace and bounce, which suits Ishant Sharma very much (remember him in Australia). Why wasn’t he taken (if you say that he was out of form, so were Yuvraj, Yusuf and Gambhir)?  Also in such tracks, why was Dhoni reluctant to use 3 fast bowlers? Dhoni was using Harbhajan in the power play overs, which left the middle overs to inexperienced bowlers. I think Dhoni thought of IPL, where he used Ashwin. Then CSK had top quality bowlers like Muralidaran and Jakati to be used in the middle, India had none.

Where did Dhoni's clever captaincy go?

Media also played a role in India’s defeats. India looked confident after winning South Africa by 14 runs. The TV channels showed how Indians got out to short pitch balls in 2009 T20 world cup. Everyone had forgotten that issue. So, all of a sudden opponents knew how to get rid of Indian batsman. Australians did it first and other teams simply followed.

Indian batsman had no answer for the short pitch stuff.

Now the next big event is 2011 worldcup in the subcontinent. Sachin’s dream is to win a world cup. Indians need to use his experience to comeback. Let’s hope they do.

Happy Reading!!!