63 Not Out Forever

It’s really amazing how life changes in one ball. A red ball actually changed the life of Hughes family forever. Phil Hughes (1988-2014) was batting on 63* in that time & the story started when Sean Abbott has delivered the bouncer to him and that hit him just beneath the area of helmet. After 2 days of unconsciousness he declared dead on 27^th Nov & world was shocked. It’s a huge loss to the cricket Australia.

How I got to know? I just entered at office on 1030 IST & my colleague informed me about this & I felt sick literally. I am really fan of this guy. Especially the way this guy started his test career against South Africa in back as 20 year guys (one of the youngest debutant for Cricket Australia in decades).

What called luck… We can understand here. This guy was dropped from Australian team as he was not able to overcome from his problems of facing short balls & see the fate. He died by short ball. Short ball haunted him for life.

I don’t want to share any more sad stories about him. I just want to share his records.

• ·         Youngest Australian to hit 2 centuries in a test.
• ·         First from Australia to hit 200+ score in a List A match in Australia domestic circuit.
• ·         He was one of the youngest Australian to hit century in test cricket.
• ·         His Highest First class score is 243*.
• ·         His Highest List A score is 202*.
• ·         His Highest T20 score is 87*.
• ·         His last inns score was 63*.

Now No one can out him ever, even no short balls would ever harm him. With a tear in my eyes, I am leaving 63 Not out forever. My deep condolences are with Hughes family & friends. Also with Sean Abbott, who delivered the ball. You are innocent my boy. It was just an accident.

63 Not out would be remembering forever by World Cricket. RIP Phil Hughes, I am sure heaven will win the championship when you are around with them.

Sourav Ganguly: The “DADA” of Indian Cricket

9^th November 2008 was the day when our own dada step in on field of cricket for last time. That was against the mighty Australian & fortunately Indian won the test & the series too.

The tale of DADA started in 1992 during westindies tour, which is more famous due to DADA’s attitude rather than his presence as a cricketer. Later this guy came back strongly in 1996 due to siddhu’s sudden withdrawal from the England tour due to dispute with that time captain Azhar. All is history now.

He is the only player in the world cricket, whose avg in tests never dipped less than 40. He rises in 2000 when India was suffering from cricket betting allegations. Same time, Azhar, Prabhakar, Ajay Jadeja etc banned from cricket for respective period.

He came back strongly & created TEAM INDIA.  Who has known for their arrogance, rough & tough on field. He found players like yuvraj, Sehwag, Harbhajan, Zaheer, Nehra, Kaif & rebuild careers of Srinath, Kumble, Dravid etc… I still remember the famous story of DADA, when he fought with Indian selectors to select Anil Kumble for the tour Australia in 2003-04. It was the period when everyone was talking about the end of kumble.  After that what happened we all knows it. This can be done by DADA only.

DADA was the captain, who taught Indian cricketers to reply to all sledges. He taught us to celebrate win. He created believe that we can win the world cup (Ref: 2003 world cup). According to few modern greats, the present winning team is the actually created by Sourav, who creates the toughness in cricketers. He gave them the authority to play without fear. He actually ploughs the Indian cricket, which is paying dividend now.

It doesn’t mean that he only tested success only. He had gone through lots of pain & discarded by media & team coach once. His famous ad on TV brought tears in DADA fans’ eyes. He was the king of returns. Later part of his career he played as all-rounder, as a bowler etc. However his inclusion always brought the positivity in team that brings positive results.

A grand salute to DADA, who has still millions of die-hard fans even he is, retires now. Only A SAURAV can make it possible.

Hope there will be a day when he will coach the TEAM INDIA :)

India vs Srilanka 3rd ODI

 Sri Lankans won the toss and elected to field against India at Rajiv Gandhi Stadium, Hyderabad.  Indians did one change in their team line up.  Ravindra Jadeja has replaced by Dhawal Kulkarni.

Once again India took wicket in first over today. This is the 13^th time in this decade or so when Sri Lankans lost their 1^st wicket in 1^st over against India.  Mahela Jayawardena  played awesome inns of 100+ today. In this match he achieved the feat of 12000 ODI runs. He is the only 5th man to do so. He batted till 40+ over. He ran out of partners during his today’s brilliant inns. Only Dilshan played a handful inn once they were 7/2 in 2 over. Once he got out entire team just followed him until Mahela did small partnership with tail Enders.

However the score they reached was 242/10. For India Umesh Yadav, Akshar Patel, Dhawal Kulkarni& Ravichandran Ashwintakes 4, 3 & 1 wickets respectively.

For India, It was once again the openers who did an excellent job. However Ajinkya Rahane  didn’t capitalize the good start & got out on 31. Shikhar Dhawan was the unluckiest player to get out on 91. Actually he was NOT OUT. It was bad umpiring. Virat Kohli  came on no 4 once again & scored a 50 as well completed his 6000 runs. Now he is holding the world record of fastest 6000 runs in world cricket. He broke the world record of Sir Viv Richards & India won the match convincingly by a good margin of 7 wickets & 5 over to spare.

Today Anushka Sharma (India actress) was at stadium & looks happy when kohli completes another 50. The best part when Virat celebrates his 50 in a special way towards where Anushka had set.  

The Indian team for rest of the series that is 2 matches would be selected tomorrow.

My Team for The Tour of Australia (Only for 4 tests)

I have thought to write about this since last week.

I would start with openers’ slot:

Openers’: Shikhar Dhawan, Murali Vijay, KL Rahul/Robin Utthappa

Middle Order: Virat Kohli, Cheteshwar Pujara, Rohit Sharma, Ajinkya Rahane

Wicket Keeper: MS Dhoni (Captain), Wriddhiman Saha

All Rounder: Ravindra Jadeja, Rishi Dhawan/Karn Sharma

Spinner: R Ashwin

Pacer: Umesh Yadav, Varun Aron, Ishanth Sharma, Md Shami, Bhuvneshwar kumar

Reason:

Opener: We don’t have much option with openers as well, we can use make shift openers such as Rahane in worse condition.

Middle order is pack.

Wicket Keeper: Don’t have much choice available for wicket keepers as Saha is the best available keeper in India at this moment.

All rounder:  I always think that Jadeja must play in test as an all rounder. He needs guidance from seniors. He is having good range of shots as well he is very tight with ball too. Any one among Rishi & Karn can get an opportunity. Karn didn’t prove himself in longer format of the game. He is a good bits & pieces bowler and batsman. I have seen his batting in IPL, not impressed though his bowling is impressive. Rishi has performed well in longer format with bat & ball. However this guy does not have rapid pace however this guy can be handy as he plays his cricket in Dharmashala. The pitch is fast & helpful to bowlers.

Spinner: There is no one near Ashwin at this moment, when it comes to bare spin department.

Pacer:  These are the best 5 pacers available in India, who can take 20 wickets of oppositions on most of the surface.

I really want India to bat with 6+5 rather than 7+4. Ball won’t swing as much it was in England. Players like Jadeja/karn/Rishi (any one of them) + Ashwin+Bhuvi can easily make up for a batsman. The main issue would be pace and bounce. We saw India actually can play pacers better than spinner. Even they lost series in England not due to pacers due to their inability to play spinners.

The fielding & catching has to improve. I am sure India can create history in Australia. It’s a best ever opportunity for India to win a series against Australia.

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India vs Sri Lanka 1st ODI

The replacement of WestIndies series has been started. Today was the first match in Cuttack.

SriLanka started the match with winning the toss & elected to bowl first in such a stadium where the team batted first lost 4 out of 5 matches. Although India won 4 out of 5 matches there.

India started their inns with Ajinkya Rahane & Shikhar Dhawan. They did an awesome 200+ runs partnership. Both the players completed their respective ODI centuries. Raina came on bat at No 3. He played a good knock of 52 runs off 34 balls. He was paying his 200^th ODI for India; as well he completes 5000 runs in ODIs. Also he completes 33^rd ODI half century today.

India finished on 363/5 in 50 overs.

SriLanka started their inns well, but lost wickets on crunch times. Varun Aron touched continuously 150+ before leaving the ground with pain. The injury is related to his right leg, & according to latest update he might not be available for the entire series. It’s a huge setback for this guy as he was bowling likeAK47. It was actually Ishant’s day out today. He took four wickets on his comeback ODI. He & umesh was awesome throughout the match. For India, ishant- 4 wickets, Axar & Umesh took 2 wickets, & Raina & Ashwin got one wicket each.

It was a great victory for Kohli & team.

MOM: Ajinkya Rahane.