Indians make good start, Lankans on course

The Indian cricketers who are challenging strongly to lay their hands on the ICC Mini World Cup, gave their chances a big lift when they brought down England in the tournament opener in Jaipur on Sunday.

Being the hosts, everything is in favour of the Indians and nothing short of winning the trophy would do for their supporters, to whom the cricketers are demi-gods and the game a religion.

Led admirably by Rahul Dravid, the team seemed to have rejuvenated the manner in which they took the field. Their thirst for success seems to have returned. The fielders attacked the ball and held on to some great catches as the one taken by Harbhajan Singh proved.

The bowlers bowled a good line. Patel, Pathan, Harbhajan and Powar teased the England batsmen and gave them no respite. The batsmen should have shown more commitment, especially Mahendra Singh Dhoni.

Coach Greg Chappell, a no nonsense man must be a bit harsh on Dhoni and tell him that a match is not won or lost till the final ball is bowled.

He tried to hit the cover out of the ball, in an unwarranted rush for victory that was easily coming and not only did he sacrifice his wicket, but his dismissal also led to India losing another wicket that of Raina.

The Indians must not rest on this victory, but be focused in their remaining games and not give up till the trophy is on their shelves.

England no chance

England have yet to lay their hands on a major trophy. They have entered finals of the World Cup and also the Mini World Cup, but have never had the joy of holding aloft any of the trophies.

And if the manner in which they performed in this game is an indication, then they will only be making up the numbers this time too. Their approach was all wrong. After losing early wickets, none of the batsmen seemed determined to perform and take them out of the sad situation that they were in.

Skipper Andrew Flintoff's early dismissal seemed to have taken away the fight from the remaining batsmen.

Even Kevin Pietersen seemed to be in an indecent hurry and being dismissed in just 37 overs is a sad indictment on their game. One hopes they will learn from this early debacle.

Lankans bash Windies

The Sri Lankans led cleverly by that wonderful cricketing brain in Mahela Jayawardena and Farveez Mahroof with some intelligent bowling bashed the West Indians by nine wickets in the final qualifying round game and now move into Group B where they join Pakistan, South Africa and New Zealand.

While this group will dislike the arrival of the Lankans, the group A with Australia, England and India will say a big welcome to the Windies who, unless they learn, will continue to be easy beats.

In my previous article I said that bowling wicket to wicket is what this game is all about. Mahroof did exactly that. He did not overdo things, but pitched in the right areas and bowled wicket to wicket that brought him instant success.

While the West Indians gave an exhibition on how not to bat, Mahroof gave an exhibition of how to bowl in this style of game to achieve success. His wonderful spell of 6 for 14 was great reward.I hope he continues to do the simple things right so that more success could come his and Sri Lanka's way.

The Lankans with this crushing victory will be bidding for the trophy. If they continue in this grand form, there is no reason why they should not bring the trophy home.

The manner in which the West Indians batted it was indicative that they were a bunch of individuals. No one seemed to be playing for team and country.

In the late 50s and early 60s the West Indians had teams that were all individual players. That was expected because they were coming from many islands.

It needed the soothing and godfatherly influence of the late Sir Frank Worrell to bring them all together and get them to play as a team. This Worrell did with great aplomb and what this team and successive teams led by Clive Llloyd and Sir Vivian Richards achieved for West Indian cricket should be shown and told to the present set of cricketers.