India began their campaign to defend the Champions Trophy on a winning note with an easy victory over Kenya. The game afforded a wonderful opportunity to batsmen to get in form and apart from Sehwag and Yuvraj, it was grasped gratefully by the others. More than Sehwag’s form, it is his attitude that’s now the worry, for the manner in which he approached the innings bordered on the indifferent. If any attack was perfect for finding form, it was the Kenya attack and all that was needed was for Sehwag to show a little patience and wait out the first few overs and then reap the rewards.
Instead, he went down the pitch at the beginning of his innings, got away with a boundary, but in trying to repeat the shot, found himself not to the pitch of the ball and ended up losing his stumps to as ugly a hoick as a tail-ender would play. It was an ungainly end and Virender Sehwag is definitely a better player than the shot suggests.
At this point, he will be getting loads of advice on how to bat out his poor trot, and he can help himself by going to his old trusted way of relying on his hand-eye coordination to get him get into the position to play the shots that only he can play. Every time he tries something different in this bad patch, it is going to backfire on him, so he has to trust his eye and show a little more discretion in the selection of balls to hit.
Yuvraj too is struggling and he was promoted up the order to provide him with time in the middle, but he was out to a good delivery.
His Yorkshire experience was not good a couple of years ago and he too has to be a bit more selective about the deliveries he chooses to play. A limited-overs match does not allow players the luxury of playing themselves in and the smart ones take the singles and give the strike to their partner who is hitting the ball well.
The Indian captain certainly is hitting the ball well, as is Mohammad Kaif, and on them now falls the responsibility of getting the big runs for India as they try and progress in the tournament. Laxman also batted with common sense making sure he got his eye in and putting runs on the board.
His partnership with Ganguly put India in the attack mode and Dravid and Kaif did the attacking in fine style to post a total beyond Kenya’s aspirations. If anything, it proved once again that if a side has wickets in hand when they come to the last ten overs, then they can raise the scoring rate to almost twice it is at the 40th over.
Irfan Pathan continues to impress with his improvement and he was more than a handful for the Kenyans who were simply not able to read how much the ball would swing. As he fills up a bit more naturally, he will add a few more yards to his pace and that will make him more lethal than he is now. Whatever natural ability that a player is blessed with, a sharp cricketing brain also helps and there’s no doubt that young Irfan Pathan has that, for the manner in which he mixes his deliveries and keeps the batsman guessing is nothing short of being mind-boggling.
God willing, he will stay fit and keep his feet on the ground and continue to serve Indian cricket for a number of years. Harbhajan Singh too is hugely talented and his loop and variety was unfathomable for the poor Kenyans. He has had his ups and downs and has come through that as a better bowler. Once again, Indian cricket will be well served if he keeps his focus and fitness, and in Pathan and him, there will be just the kind of skills needed to get top batsmen out on all kinds of wickets.
India’s fielding too rose to great heights with Kaif affecting a brilliant run-out and some difficult catches made to look easy by the others.
There was an air of self-confidence about the team that bodes well for the future, and though Kenya aren’t the toughest of opposition, it was the manner of India’s domination that gives hopes of solid Champions Trophy performance.
