Under the captaincy of Mahendra Singh Dhoni, the Indian team with its young stream of cricketers started its hunt for the winner’s title in the Twenty20 world cup tournament with its first match against Scotland on 13th September in Kingsmead, Durban, South Africa. India was treated one amongst the underdogs of the tournament along with Bangladesh, Scotland, Kenya and Zimbabwe as the team had only one twenty20 match experience, making them almost new to this format of cricket.
India shared group D along with arch-rivals Pakistan and cricket minnows Scotland. Earlier, in the first match of the group Pakistan defeated Scotland by 51 runs on 12th, September. The next match in the group was between India and Scotland. However, the match was delayed due to rain and was later washed-out, after Scotland captain Ryan Watson won the toss and elected to field first. This forced India to share the points with Scotland. The situation also required India to maintain a better run rate over Scotland to qualify for Super Eight, even if India were to lose their last group match against Pakistan. The final group match was on 14th, between India and Pakistan again in Kingsmead, Durban. This match was one of the most thrilling matches of the tournament. India scored 141 runs for 9 wickets in 20 overs. Later Pakistan managed to score 130 runs after the completion of 19th over, thanks to the brilliant Misbah who scored 53 off 35 balls. The final over was bowled by the new Indian bowling sensation Sreesanth when Pakistan was on the berks of victory. It was like standing at the edge of the cliff, tossing on your toe not knowing if you fall off the cliff or fall back safe, When Misbah managed to level the scores one ball one run to win for Pakistan. However, the match lead to a Bowl-out to decide the winner, after Misbah failed to score the run and was run out by Yuvraj Singh. In the Bowl-out, India emerged victorious after first three of their bowlers succeeded in hitting the stumps. Pakistan bowlers on the other hand failed to hit the stumps even once. This final group D match saw Scotland go out of the tournament and Pakistan and India advanced to the Super Eight.
India played its first super eight match against New Zealand on 16th September in the New Wanderers Stadium at Johannesburg. India lost this match to New Zealand by 10 runs, thanks to New Zealand’s skipper Vettori who took four wickets for 20 runs restricting the Indian team to 180 for 9. India’s next match was on 19th against England. India were in a do-or-die situation, they should win this match if they were to remain in the race to qualify for the semi-finals. The match witnessed one of the rarest feats in cricket history. Yuvraj Singh helped India to reach 218 for the loss of just 4 wickets, after the left-hander hit 6 sixes in the 19th over of Chris Brod, setting another record of fastest half century in twenty20 cricket off only 12 balls. Later England, which had lost a chance to qualify for the semis, could only manage 200 in twenty overs. The last Super Eight match was between India and South Africa. This match was very crucial for both the teams to reach the semifinals. Batting first, India scored 153 for 5 in their 20 overs, thanks to Rohit Sharma’s unbeaten fifty off 40 balls. Chasing the target of 154, the hosts again showed their tendency to lose important matches in big tournaments, after they could only manage 116 for 9 in 20 overs. Even though they lost the match, they could still have made it to the semifinals along with India if they had managed to score 126 runs in their 20 overs. This would eliminate New Zealand from the last four teams. However, South Africa failed to reach that mark too despite their batsmen best efforts to qualify for the semifinals. This resulted in South Africa getting knocked out of the tournament.
Leave a Reply