India beaten by Bangladesh. First match of world cup 2007 for India. Before I start criticizing India let me first give full credits to the young and energetic team of Bangladesh. They played so very well in all departments of cricket. Lets start from the beginning. India won the toss and elected to bat. It was a 50-50 decision by Dravid (Indian Captain). He said that pitch had something for the bowlers early on in the match but was very confident about his batting line up.
Sehwag (not in form) and Ganguly came out to bat. Before I talk about Sehwag's performance today I would just like to remind that in the Ind-SL series just before the world cup he got run out in such unseen fashion ever. He is so casual on the field that while taking a single he was not even looking in the direction of the ball. Wicket keeper got the ball from the fielder and threw at the non-striker's end where Sehwag was caught short of his crease. So keeping that in the back ground. This morning he was running towards the danger end and again did not ground his bat. He was fortunate enough to survive but was very close. He probably got the benefit of doubt (which always goes to a batsman). Fortune would not favor him again, in the 3rd over he was bowled (dragged the ball onto the stumps). He was neither forward nor fully back to play that shot. Yet again he missed a golden chance to prove himself. I really wonder how he survived for so long in international cricket with zero foot work. He has absolutely no idea where his foot is.
I seriously feel that Sehwag should be dropped from the team and players like Robin Uthappa and Dinesh Karthik should be given more chances who are technically solid players. I am not a kind of person who salutes only the rising sun but Sehwag has no clue about his foot work. He should be asked to improve his foot work until that time he should not be in the team. Full marks to the Bangladesh team who did not give anything away to the Indians. None of the Indian batsmen (except Ganguly & Yuvraj) showed any resistance to the B'desh bowlers India lost 5 wickets in the gap of just 2 runs. Tail enders added 32 runs in the end for the last wicket.
It was the same scene when B'desh started to bat, in the sense that India was again at the receiving end. Tamim started from the word go. He had absolutely no respect for the Indian bowlers and just butchered the bowling all around the ground. B'desh won comfortably at the end. With this loss, India's chances of getting into the Super 8 is hanging on a thin edge. India would have to win the remaining 2 matches for sure to be in any contention for Super 8. Assuming SL beat B'desh and B'desh beat Bermuda then India, SL, B'desh would be tied up with 4 points each and then the net run rate would decide which 2 teams reach the Super 8. India would have to beat bermuda by a huge margin and hope SL beats B'desh convincingly. By losing India has made it tougher on itself to qualify for the Super 8. Many people were of the view before the world cup that minnows bring down the level of the world cup and I always favored that they should be given a chance. India and Pakistan's loss (Pakistan is out of the world cup) has reiterated that one cannot take the minnows (B'desh is not a minnow anymore) lightly and have to take every game seriously. I being an Indian desperately want India to qualify for the Super 8 and better still to win the world cup but at the end of the day I would also like the best team to win.
