Yuvraj Blitz Takes India To High Scoring Thriller Against West Indies

From the drama of the Twenty20 World Cup it was the 50 over match that bought the tension and excitement in the first one day match between West Indies and India at Sabina Park.

A total of 658 runs were scored and 23 sixes the fourth highest in a one day match are huge numbers but it is a format that is hugely being impacted from the Twenty20 format. Both teams wanted to put a good performance on and win with West Indies poor performance in the semi final and India’s embarrassing knock out in the Super Eights.

India had a number of there big players out but it allowed them to test there bench strength and there was still a very strong team selected. India were struggling at the top with losing Gambhir and Sharma leaving India on 32 for 2 after 7 overs but then it was all about Yuvraj Singh blistering innings who was supported brilliantly by Dinesh Karthik. Karthik played his first match after a long stint out of the team and he looked very composed opening and scored an excellent 67 at a strike rate of 87.77.

But once Yuvraj got his eye in and got use to the pace of the wicket and got some momentum going he was unstoppable and such a pleasure to watch. What ever Gayle threw at Yuvraj he would answer it with smashing the bowler all over the ground whether it was Bravo, Jerome Taylor, Benn or Gayle. In his innings of 131 he scored 10 boundaries and 7 sixes, in a space of 17 balls he scored 82 runs which is astonishing, and if he stayed till the end of the innings we could taking about the first double century in one day cricket. Even with the fall of the Yuvraj India continued the momentum and the attack with Dhoni, Yusuf and Harbhajan scoring useful runs.

With a 340 set for West Indies to win it was all set up for a special innings from Chris Gayle but he never really got going. The top four batsmen all got excellent starts but never went on to play the innings Yuvraj played and with regular fall of wickets the target for West Indies seemed out of reach. With the fall of Jerome Taylor leaving West Indies struggling on 250 for 7 it seemed game over and so did the Indian team which cost them and Yusuf Pathan’s over that went for 13 runs and 9 runs in the last two balls was the turning point where West Indies believed and India realized they were in a battle. From that point onwards India gave the Windies with too many extra runs which was criminal and only got West Indies closer to the score of 340. Credit to Ramdin and the lower order they threw there bat and got closer but it was all too much for them and the experience India had of holding there never under pressure showed and they ended victorious.

It was Twenty20 that was bringing the crowds in to the stadiums and people watching it on TV but the 50 over match showed that it still has a place. It may not have been the best standards on the field or bowling which allowed the match to be more excitement and allowed the batsmen to prevail.

Let’s hope the rest of the series has the same amount of tensions, excitements and goes all the way to the 100th over and we will all be satisfied.