Tuesday, September 25, 2007

India won the T20 World Cup cricket

Enthralling atmosphere. Exhilarating cricket and scintillating moments of heart throbbing and mind boggling cricket over a span of abt two weeks.

Twenty Twenty Cricket saw its first world cup to be a huge hit |-O
Nothing compared to the fantastic cricketing atmosphere and the dug outs created for the players created more of a soccer environment.
But as ICC says the focus never shifted from cricket.


What have we, the funseekers to do wid wat ICC said so I come to the point now.

Where we enjoyed the game in college was superb atmosphere.
The starting game was screened only in the TV room wid ppl crammed and hanging on to nething/neone to catch a glimpse of the match.
That itself was worth an applause for the cricket crazy fans of the college who got crazier with the T20 outfit coming into picture.

As India advanced into the semis we somehow managed to get the matches screened at the Open Air Theater where the whole college could watch the match wid ease. It was a huge hit. Whole OAT was full and that in itself is a very big achievement considering the sheer magnitude of ppl it can hold.


Firstly the India Pakistan league match:

The crunch situation in the match. Pakistan needing mere 1 run of two balls and the ppl in TV room stood up. Result, more than 90% ppl present there cud not see the screen. Now it so happens that Sreesanth manages a dot ball and the scene comes alive as if the fans had sprung up from death ;)
Last ball wicket and its a tie.
People cannot believe it. What better result of an Indo-Pak traditional rivals in cricket. Here comes another resemblance of T20 wod soccer
The bowl out. 5 bowlers each side balls a ball each and tries to hit the stump. Similar case as in penalty. But no batsmen to get the ball past.
Surprisingly India chose 2 non regular bowlers much to the resentment of the fans present in ma college. Pakisatan chose there 5 bowlers as those who originally bowled in the match.
We were very much into thinking that Pakistan has made the right move just to be proven wrong.
India won the match 3-0 wid no pakistan bowler able to hit the stumps where both indian part timers hitting the wicket.
Result is that India moves into the Super 8 being top of the grp |-O.


After this match in the Super 8 came a shade of darkness in the Indian performance.
After a scintillating performance by the opening partnership the middle order failed to capitalise and it became a do or die situation for India in every match.India lost by 10 runs. A heart break for Indian fans and negative vibes begin to surface as ppl said India cannot make it to semis.


Up comes the game against England and what more could we expect.

An absolute jaffer of a match where India scored prolifically. Thanks to a gr8 opening stand by Gambhir/Sehwag and then in the end to an absolute gem of an innings by Yuvi. He became a heartthrob from heartsore in the span of 6 balls. His failures in the previous 2 matches were forgotten and ppl worshiped Yuvi. After all its not normal at all to hit 6 sixes in an over. The crowd ( me included obviously ) was dancing frantically in the OAT as we saw the over of poor Stuart Broad being dispatched to all corners of the ground.
India won the match and set up another do or die wid the hot favourites SA.


SA team was being considered as a clear fav for winning the WC. Having won the previous 2 matches agst England and NZ in the super 8 they were supposed to be going into the semis as the no. 1 team.
India had to beat SA to reach semis.
Group status b4 the match being NZ and SA winning 2 matches and India winning a single match with 2 teams going thru.

India came up wid such brilliant performance that SA batsmen were found wanting.
Result SA not only lost the match but lost it wid such big margin that NRR of NZ became more than that of SA and India NZ got into the semis.
The match was an absolute classic.
It was showcased initially at the OAT but due to rain we had to move to the small TV room.
Although this did not dampen our spirits at all.
Fans were running crazy.
dancing hugging and kissing (some must've ;) ). India had setup a clash wid undisputed cric champions of the World
The AUSTRALIANS.

The australians were taken by surprise as they were expecting to play SA in the semis. SA being out of the tourney was the biggest upset of the WC.


Up comes the Semifinal
India vs Australia

venue OAT @ DAIICT again :)

Indians had one all games batting first. One they batted second they lost.
On the other hand it was vice versa for Australia who had only succeeded in chasing.

India won the toss and batted first.
India posted up a decent total once again due to the blitz of Yuvraj singh who blasted the Australian bowling apart. Rain disrupted screening at OAT but we are smart and ready
we moved inside SAC :D
And hence saw the match there wid all ppl being able to view the match.

India won a spectacular victory wid Sreesanth giving Australians their own treatment. intense glaring and that too to Symonds and Hayden. 2 of the beasts in the cricketing world, I cannot even imagine getting close to them for the sheer fear. To actually stare in their eyes in such a manner deserves credit and the mighty Aussies were humbled by the exuberant Indians in this way. The public in the SAC went berserk.
India had set up a mighty India Pakistan clash for the first T20 WC.
Who wud have thought that India who were seeded 8th in the tourney will actually get into the finals.

On to the finals and India had nothing to lose except pride.
India had never lost to Pakistan in any form of world cup b4.
Even in the league matches they had somehow converted defeat into victory.

The match was what it was thought to be
another absolute classic. India posted a moderate total for pakistan.
A total easily chaseable under normal circumstances.
But it was an Indo Pak match and wat even more a WC final.

Pakistan came under pressure as Indian Bowling hero RP Singh struck straight away.

2nd over Sreesanth going for over 20 disheartened many indians but India bounced back with two excellent overs back to back.

Finally it came down to 12 runs of 6 balls.
A feat easily acheivable in T20. But prob for pak was that they had the last pair at the crease.
Their star batsmen Misbah still there.
Joginder Sharma had the over and Indian Fans had their heart in their hands.
Misbah hit Jogindar for a six and everything seemed down in the dumps.

We were emotionally ready for an Indian defeat.
But T20 never stops to surprise u. Misbah tried a fancy shot over short fine leg.
it was seemingly going over him but when the ball landed it landed straight into the hands of Sreesanth.
With this India had won the T20 WC.

At SAC what were we doing

celebrating wat else..

There was instant arrangement of music to dance to and ppl danced to their heart's content |-O


A tremendous contest on offer for the cricket lovers |-O...


We just had a bash :D

1 comment:

Abhinesh said...

Hmmm.......couldn't be a better description....I can feel my blood thumping my veins with excitement again ......the wc was a real excitement and both the Indo-Pak matches were so nail biting experiences , can't be expressed ....can be just felt ....good work Ambuj , hats off to you buddy !