What an anti-climax the game turned out to be. This was a much awaited clash and more so after the happenings over the last few days. The Australians were seething and they wanted to have a battle instead they got not even a skirmish from the Indians. True this was not the same Twenty-20 team that won the World Cup in September last year but it still had some good players. Perhaps the ones missed most were Yuvraj Singh and R. P. Singh who were the stars of that famous win. Since Sachin Tendulkar understandably opted to rest after his efforts in the Test series the Indians had very little by way of experience in their ranks. And once Virender Sehwag with a bit more experience than the others was run out without scoring it was going to be a tough task. The game once again showed how it can bring players down to earth in a jiffy for Sehwag had only a few days ago played one of the finest innings in Indian Test cricket history and here he was out for a duck. Gautam Gambhir and Robin Uthappa made the mistake of attempting to go over the top a bit early before they had got used to the bounce in Australia and after that there was a procession of batsmen not wanting to be a bit patient and batting sensibly but trying to hit sixes on this huge ground with its big boundaries. Only Irfan Pathan who batted with common sense got to double figures and that wasn’t enough to give India a competitive score to defend.
Michael Clarke had started the Indian rot with his throw to run out Sehwag and he marshaled his resources impressively. Australia had included plenty of players who could bat and bowl so there was always plenty of flexibility around and plenty of options too. Clarke remained unbeaten to take his team to an easy win and the crowd got to see one big six from Adam Gilchrist who was given a warm sendoff by the big crowd.
India’s unseemly hurry and desire for the big shots proved expensive and let’s hope that they learn from this that hitting sixes on the smaller South African grounds is one thing and trying that on the big Australian venues is another else we will have more one sided games like these.
