Can Team India Create Cricketing History?

Many summers ago the Nawab of Pataudi led the Indian cricket team to a famous series win over New Zealand in Wellington. Unfortunately that was India's last series win in New Zealand. Now Dhoni and his men have a chance to recreate history by winning the third and final test. Napier was a bad dream and Gambhir, Dravid and Laxman saved India the blushes with useful contributions from Sachin and Yuvraj too.

Will Balaji be playing tomorrow? Will Dhoni be fit enough to play?
Let us see what happens tomorrow!

India in New Zealand

So reality hit Team India hard at the end of the first T:20 match.

Vettori won the toss and decided to bowl.

Sehwag plastered the first three balls he faced for sixers. The small ground theory was proved right. Then the madness started-Gambhir was out and the procession of wickets started as the star batsmen fell quickly. At 101 for the loss of 7 wickets things were looking tough. Somehow Raina and Harbhajan played sensibly and a decent target of 163 runs was achieved.

New Zealand started on a disastrous note with Ishant and Zaheer firing on full steam. But Brendon Mc Cullum who is become Mr. Dependable for the Kiwis ensured that New Zealand won comfortably.

The second T:20 tomorrow will be a challenge for Dhoni's Team and the team is likely to undergo changes. The batsmen need to play with maturity and responsibility and not throw their wickets. Let us see what happens!

West Indies deny England a Win

Strauss would be frustrated with all of England for failing to get the last wicket and redeem English pride after the debacle at Sabina Park.

Jerome Taylor and Fidel Edwards somehow managed to hold their wits and managed to secure a draw against a buoyant English bowling attack.

With Flintoff ruled out of the series the next match will be crucial.

Let us see what happens.

In other cricketing news the Indian team has reached New Zealand. The first T:20 will be held on Feb 25.

Fall of the Titans-Collapse of the Australian Juggernaut-

Michael Hussey, is utterly depressed and so is his team, he has led Australia to its first white-wash in a long period, personally I don't remember having witnessed an Australian whitewash by any team.

Australia scored 300 plus runs twice and they have been well and truly beaten by a confident Kiwi team. Today's match was an absolute delight to watch, hmm well I was at office so I could just check the scores on the net. Australia posted a mammoth total of 346 runs mainly due to the herculean effort of Matthew Hayden, who remained unbeaten on 181, the highest score by an Australian in ODIs.

Hussey would have been confident of a face-saving victory when New Zealand were 4 wickets down for 41 runs. Never in his wildest dreams would Hussey have thought that he would be captaining the losing side at that juncture. Well as they say-"Man propses and God disposes." The disposal came in the form of three brilliant knocks by Fulton, Brendan Mc Cullum and Craig Mc' Millan. They scored 51, 117 and 86 respectively.

In the 50 th over New Zealand required 7 runs to win. Nathan Bracken bowled the last over and Brendan struck a superb six and four to seal the match in favour of the Kiwis.

All of you doomsday critics wait before you write off Australia in the World Cup. The services of Lee, Ponting, Adam Gilchrist and Andy Symmonds were missing in this Trans-Tasman Series. In the World Cup three of these players and perhaps Symmonds will play for Australia, so the results could be different. This double series loss for Australia is good for World Cricket and now every team believes it has a chance to win.

Let us see another 23 days to go for the grand spectacle of sport. Wait and watch.