Both literally and metaphorically speaking, the much-hyped CB Series has turned out to be one damp squib so far for all of the sides concerned, and especially so for India. With the 2nd ODI in the series between India and Sri Lanka, being consecutively abandoned due to rain, many have already started losing interest in the ongoing contest of the cricketing kind. For the sake of records, the match was played at Brisbane Cricket Ground, Woolloongabba, Brisbane on Tuesday, 5 February 2008. India won the toss to begin with and opted to bat first, which turned out to be one good decision to have been made in quite a while.
With Tendulkar and Sehwag well settled on the crease, India got off to a flying start as the veteran duo seemed to be cruising for a long innings with a half-century partnership to their credit. Suddenly, Malinga struck in with the deadly pace and swing which deceived Tendulkar only too well to survive. Despite failing to make a commendable contribution to the game in particular, the little Maestro did not fail to cross the 16,000 ODI runs mark and went on to become one batsman of his own kind in the global cricketing fraternity. The day was, however, destined for the unlikely heroes to emerge as Sehwag soon succumbed to the fury of Sri Lankan bowling effort. Gautam Gambhir was the one standing in the midst of chaos as Muralitharan claimed the scalps of Yuvraj and Rohit Sharma in his characteristic manner. The Indian scorecard read 83 runs for 4 wickets. The premature fall of wickets brought skipper on the crease and the unlikely duo of Gambhir and Dhoni started working their way up against a formidable bowling side of Sri Lanka. What followed is history, as the two kept climbing a rung higher on the ladder of batsmanship with some truly classic shots being played in a memorable innings. Sri Lanka, however, had little to complain after Kumar Sangakkara dropped Gambhir off Chaminda Vaas at the score of merely 11 runs. The young braveheart kept his nerve well to emerge an achiever by scoring an unusual century under immense pressure to stay on the crease and pile up a huge score for the opponent side. The characteristic fluency of Dhoni's batting, which was much in evidence in this particular innings, was perhaps another factor which kept Gambhir wanting to have more, creating a kind of healthy mutual competition as if. Credits to some gutsy display of batting at the end of the innings, India ended up with a competitive cricket score of 267 runs for 4 wickets in the allotted 50 overs.
What followed next, is history of another kind, however, because for all of the efforts put up by the Indian batsmen, nothing could have compensated for the singularly crowning moment of winning the match or at least ending up with a good contest which was not to be with the rains playing a sport of their own kind. The second innings never got off due to incessant rains, and after some time umpires called it a day, awarding both the sides 2 points each to take home. Whatever might have been the result of this excitingly depressing match, one thing is for sure, it would have been better than what has happened in this particular case and it is now becoming an alarming trend recently which has put a question mark on the future of the series.
Last Updated on 24 August 2012
