|
Videocon
Cup : India Vs Australia, O.D.I # 2 at
Amstelveen
|
Rain
ruins an interesting match
August
23, 2004
Cricketfundas.com's
Highlights presented by B.V.Swagath
Scorecard
World
Champions and the ever-performing Aussies were
taking on the Champs of Inconsistent performers,
India. For India to stay alive in this
tournament, they had to win this match
comprehensively. Weather permitting; we could
have a great game to content with. But that
wasn’t the case even today and play couldn’t
start off in time because of the bad weather
conditions. Once again excellent draining
facilities at the VRA ground helped the umpires
to squeeze in a 32 overs limited game inspite of
losing four hours of play.
Flip
Of the Coin
Ricky
Ponting was the Toss ka Boss today and he
interestingly chose to bat first. Ponting
wasn’t sure how the track would be behaving in
the second innings. India made one change in
resting Ajit Agarkar, who is out with a side
strain and replaced him with Ashish Nehra.
Aussies put Jason Gillespie, Ian Harvey and
Shane Watson to the benches.
Australian
Batting
Brad
Haddin, who has the reputation of a dasher
opened with big man Matthew Hayden. Ashish
Nehra’s first ball was a late inswinging
yorker, which thudded onto Haddin’s toe, but
Umpire Jeremy Lloyds made an atrocious error in
not ruling the batsman out. However India and
Nehra didn’t waste much time in removing
Haddin, as the wicket keeper batsman drove on
the rise to Balaji at mid off. Matt Hayden was
joined by his skipper, Ponting was busy in
scoring runs right from the word go. Hayden on
the other hand was struggling to cope up with
the slowness in the track. The Indian bowlers
stuck to a tight line and length, even Sehwag
who was brought in early into the attack kept
the two batsmen quiet. The big wicket of Hayden
fell as he pulled Balaji straight to the throat
of Ganguly at short mid wicket. Hayden got out
to a relatively slow 29 from 49 balls. Balaji
gave a double breakthrough as he trapped Ponting
lbw in the same over. Australia were reduced at
70/3 after 15 overs. Kumble, who was brought
into the attack got Symonds to edge to Dravid
and Australia were down and out at 83/4. They
were further down at 138/6 after losing Martyn
and Lehman. This was the time when the young
Michael Clarke began to crack some important
strikes along with Brad Hogg. A sparkling
innings from Clarke had to end in a dramatic
fashion with Virender Sehwag taking a blinder at
long on. The ball was flying and flying out of
the ground but Sehwag timed his jump and put his
right hand up and the ball stuck into it! It
sure is one of the best all time catches and
Clarke got out for a superb 42 from just 26
balls with 6 fours. Rain interrupted play again
with just two more balls to go for the innings
close, the umpires called for covers and
Australia had scored 175/7 out of the possible
31.4 overs. Balaji is having a great tournament
as he ended with 3/20 in his 6 overs.
With
time running out and weather not being kind
enough, the match was abandoned. It now looks
very difficult for India to make it to the
finals.
|
