Nice way to take off

India kickstarted their campaign to defend their title in a perfect note, beating Bangladesh comfortably. Though it looked like comfortable, some individual brilliance of Yuvraj Singh and Ojha is required to script this win. Dhoni won the toss and continued the trend of last WC by choosing to set a target. In the absence of Sehwag, Rohit opened the innings along with Gambhir both started well and raced away to 50 but after the Rohit’s wicket the run rate started to dip as both Dhoni and Gambhir were never in a mood to accelerate. So it’s a boon when they both got out by 14^th and 16^th over. Bangladesh slow bowlers done well in keeping them quiet… no no.. very quiet. Then came Yurvaj, effortlessly hitting sixes at will and took the game away from Bangladesh. He killed their bowlers with some great hitting. With Irfan hitting a six and four in the last over means that India reaching a par total of 180 on that pitch.

Bangladesh started off well with taking on both Zaheer and Irfan to cleaners and seemed to be racing away. Especially Siddique was doing more damage. Tamim Iqbal and Mohammed Ashraful fell cheaply but didn’t wasted balls. But in came Ojha took 2 important wickets in his first over scalping both dangerous Shakib-ul-hasan and Siddique. And that’s the curtains for Bangladesh as there are no players who can score at the required rate and they ended up at 155. Ojha got 4 wickets for his clever bowling and Yuvraj took a brilliant forward diving catch while the dismissal of Mahmaddullah.

It’s still a puzzle why Dhoni coming in at No.3 and halting the momentum. He has done the same with CSK. He has Raina in his team who is in good form but he promotes himself up and halts the momentum. Its better if he comes down the order and allows explosive players like Raina and Yuvraj to play more overs. Maybe he thinks about right-left combination much. But it will bring no good if there is no hint of aggressiveness.