“obnoxious little weed” Harbhajan Singh removes both obnoxious big weeds as India win easily
India vs Australia ODI match Sydney 2 March, 2008 - A Fun Report
Australia were once again lucky with the Toss and got to bat first. They’ve been too lucky with this stuff. Today the bowling was opened by Praveen Kumar and Ishant Sharma. They were bang on target as Australia began earnestly scoring more than a run a ball. Praveen Kumar struck removing Gilchrist, and then Ponting after his usual struggle that we’ve seen on this tour was released when Praveen struck again. Have you noticed that he has stopped sledging. Maybe sledging has something to do with form! But then there’s the Sri Lankan and West Indian teams who don’t sledge at all. Well at least the Australian team, only the men in form sledge! Well once Ishant joined the party Australia were tottering at 3/24. At this juncture Symonds joined Hayden and they steadied the innings. And then they started striking the ball at a run a ball. They added 100 runs in about a 104 balls. Well it was left to the “obnoxious little weed” Harbhajan Singh to remove some other obnoxious big weeds - He removed both Symonds and Hayden. Well, obviously it was going to be a great send off as Harbhajan has been tormented by both of them this series. Well the remaining batsmen and tailenders slowed down and could add just 104 runs thereafter from 22.3 overs. India has played Piyush Chawla instead of Munaf Patel in this match. Piyush Chawla was happy to bowl to them and returned with low RPO of 3.3 but didn’t get any wicket. The final score of 239 was not very high but seemed adequate for the Australians who were playing 5 bowlers.
India began their reply with fast scrorer Uthappa weighed down by the responsibility of opening the innings. Somehow, either this is not a good idea, but anyway, Uthappa should play his usual fast game irrespective of where he bats. Then Gambhir was unlucky to get run out and Aussies could sense a chance there. Yuvraj came in a soon Ponting put Hoggy since Yuvraj cannot seem to control his delight at spinners. Well, soon Hogg was rewarded by his wicket when he clean bowled a tentative Yuvraj. Now Rohit Sharma joined Sachin Tendulkar who was determined to last. Rohit batted quite slowly initially hitting a run every two balls, as Tendulkar kept hir scoring rate near to a run a ball. Slowly Rohit eased out and scored at the same pace in the latter part of his innings. Rohit hit a smart 66 in a 123 run partnership with Tendulkar before he was bowled out by Hopes. Hopes turned out as predicted to be an important player throughout the tournament with useful contributions both with the bat and the ball each time. Well with only 30 runs left Dhoni cracked a few fours and Tendulkar continued savaging the attack and they finished off in style beating Australia by 6 wickets with more than 4 overs remaining. This was a memorable knock from Sachin Tendulkar.
(the above are written in a funny mood and not intended to hurt your sentiment - i doubt if any actual players gets time to read - so please don’t (get) hurt yourself defending them)
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