It's In TeH GaMe !!!

Don't believe me, better do so. Rahul Dravid, one of the best technical players in the world and my favourite cricketer is among the 30 probables for the Champions Trophy this year in September. I was totally shocked when I saw the news flash on the television, but it is completely understood why he is being considered for the One-dayers. Indian batsmen like Gautam Gambhir, Suresh Raina, Rohit Sharma and many more have struggled to face the short delivery well. Dravid's inclusion, I believe will surely give a new atmosphere to the Indian dressing room and will surely add pressure on youngsters to perform well in order to secure a place in the playing XI. Though we've seen Dravid play some long innings with strike rates around 30, but Dravid's performance in the IPL and the Test series against NewZealand have proved that he still has the ability to strike the ball at a good rate. I feel Dravid if selected will surely hold up to the expectations I have from him. Till then let's wish him luck for his one-dayer comeback.

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Oh and finally I managed to watch the full game(I was suffering from severe fever so I didn't go to school today). Finally, it is a relieve on the face of the Indian fans as their team beat NZ by 53 runs(thanks to the D/L method).

The Kiwis looked totally helpless today. They were off colour and failed to make a mark in any of the department. The rain started to pour down heavily in Napier and the game was reduced to 38 overs a side. Viru was at his usual best. He hammered the bowlers all over the small ground. Tendulkar as I had said before wasn't really able to concentrate. After Tendulkar was out I, in fact most of those watching this game would have expected Gambhir at No.3. But the captain Dhoni promoted himself at that one of the most important slot and did wonders along with Sehwag who was later dismissed by the Black Caps captain Vettori. Then came Yuvraj in the middle who couldn't do much and was run out on a paltry 2 of 13 balls. Bringing himself(MSD) and his deputy at the top clearly showed the intentions of the Indians to go after the ball even in the middle overs. In my opinion that wasn't a good move. Number 3 and number 4 are that kind of positions which requires(and in fact gives them the power) the batsmen to control the pace of their team's innings. I would have preferred to bring either Raina or Gambhir at No.4 as this would have created a balance between aggressive hitting and singles and doubles. But Dhoni was in some other mood. He rather himself was first settling down by rotating strike with Raina who scored a solid 66 of just 39 balls which was the turning point of the Men in Blue's innings. India ended their batting with 273 runs on the board with the loss of 4 wickets at the average of 7.18 runs per over. Awesome ! Isn't it ?!

There was more to come. The hero for NZ in both the T20s - Brendon McCullum was caught for a duck. The scoreboard read 111-4 in 20.5 overs when it started to rain again. The match was now reduced to 28 overs and the new target set for the Black Caps was 216 runs. Perhaps, one would say that the rain made things difficult for the islanders. It surely did. The pressure revolved around Martin Guptill to score as quickly as possible. But the Indian bowlers, especially Harbhajan Singh had different ideas. The 24th over of the Kiwi innings was a dream over for Bhajji. He quickly dismissed Guptill, Neil Broom and Mills to reduce the New Zealand from 132-5 to 132-8. Soon it was all over for Vettori's men in black. They ended their run chase managing 162 runs with the loss of 9 wickets.

Finally, the Indian team seems to have settled down well and are reading the conditions well! There's a lot more to think for Vettori and his team.

India leads the series 1-0 winning the first game tonight.

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