Its Only Cricket

Match 2 : Gambhir's gaga at Gabba, but rain wins again!

Filed under CB Tri-series 2008

Gambhir-century-Brisbane1.jpg We all know how Shahid Afridi borrowed bat from Waqar Younis & went on to hit fastest ODI century - off 37 balls. in 1996 at Nairobi.

Same little story has repeated itself cause the bat Gautam Gambhir is using since Twenty20 world cup some 6 months ago - he had borrowed it from Virendra Sehwag. With same bat, today - Gambhir smashed 102 runs off just 101 balls & remained unbeaten. Scorecard.

Gambhir's century wasn't as scintillating as that one was by Afridi - but when measured from eyes of skill, hard work & teams' need - Gautam gaga today at Gabba in Brisbane was a class apart. Interestingly - for both batsmen with borrowed bats (Afridi & Gambhir) - opposition was Srilankan team!

At 83/4 - captain Dhoni had joined Gautam & they looked for quick singles even though Srilankans displayed exceptional fielding abilities - specially Tilakaratane Dilshan, Chamara Kapugedara and Chamara Silva inside the 30 yard circle. Indian left-right combination were reading the dimensions of Woollongabba (Gabba in short) ground very well - ran hard between the wickets & got lucky at times when fielders failed to hit stumps.. but that was the need of that hour. After electing to bat first - Indian opener - Tendulkar & Sehwag had put on 68 runs before Indians lost 4 wickets for just 13 runs. if you recall correctly - in last match 1 against Aussies - Indians had lost 4 wickets for 11 runs!

Srilankan trump card, undoubtedly, was ace spinner Muthiah Muralitharan. He had dismissed Yuvraj Singh very easily and his tail was up. there wasn't much spin help from the pitch but going by Murali's mastery - you expect world record holder to run through any batting side on most days. Credit should go to Dhoni-Gautam combination who played late, picked up doosra's and off-spinners & never played against the spin.

Gautam Gambhir is an opening batsman who always deals with swing & seam against new ball bowlers but I feel no hesitation in naming him as one of best batsman of spin bowling around the world cricket these days. He's very quick on his feets - and made most of the dropped catch by Kumar Sagakkara early on in his innings.

Gambhir-century-Brisbane1.jpg Gambhir was adjudged lbw in last match - trying to flick a straight delivery from Mitchell Johnson onto the leg side..today the correction was made - never across the line. he played in 'V' & even hit a six over covers off Lasith Malinga - which hints we might not have seen all that Gautam can show as a left handed top order batsman!

Srilankan captain - Mahela Jayawardene, tried everything. Chaminda Vaas thrice changed his bowling end, Muralitharan bowled around the stumps & then Chamara Kapugedera bowled 5 overs of medium-pace after playing 23 ODIs just as a batsman. Ishara Amerasinghe - the right arm medium pacer - playing his second one day International - bowled very straight but mostly outside off-stump. one might argue Lankans were not aggressive enough when they could have been - but their bowling arsenal didn't looks as threatening as it used to some 12 months ago.

India made 267 for 4 wickets but not one ball was bowled for a Lankan chase due to heavy rain right from lunch interval. Both teams shared two points each.

two more note
**Sachin Tendulkar got past his 16,000 runs in one day Internationals. 16,007 to be exact since this and interestingly this was the first time two cricketers with experience of over 400 ODIs (Sachin Tendulkar & Sanath Jayasuriya) were both playing in same match. Jayasuriya has 12207 runs in ODIs which makes his second is list of most runs scorers in 50 overs cricket..Now do you know - Sachin has never scored a ODI century in Australia!?!

**This was Gautam Gambhir's 3rd ODI century, 2nd against Srilanka whereas he also has one century against Bangaldesh. This was also the first century of this commonwealth bank triseries in australia.




Related Articles
Top Topics Today

Itsonlycricket.com


Get new posts in email

feeds
Random Pics

fun