“Let them do the talking. We’ve come here for playing cricket” was the comment of Australia’s cap, Ricky Ponting Then what are we, Indians, here for? For hardening and making the pitch flat for the Aussies to play on it? For all his words and harsh comments against the Indians, which doesn’t stop with Indian cricket team, but also seems to extend towards all the citizens of India , a strong reply has been given, though after two setbacks.But, it’s never too late.
With three games left in the series, India came back very hard on the kangaroos. Dreams shattered for Ponting, the human with an iron tongue. This man, for his aggression, would have expected his so called supreme cricket team to win all the 7 ODIs. The first one was washed out by rain. They had the luck going their way in the next two matches. But, now, after being pushed into the pits, he wouldn’t have expected the Indians to come back fiercely.
The 3rd ODI was a nail-biting thriller at the end when Aussies lost control of the match which was supposed to be their game. A team, which claims to be the best in the business, shouldn’t lose a piece of cake like this. When Aussies were 229 with 4 wickets down, nobody would have even thought of India’s chance of winning the game. A splendid spell from Bajji and the new boy in the team, Murali Karthik, snatched the game from the ‘safe hands’ of the Aussies. It was an awesome effort from these two slow bowlers when Hayden was striking the ball really hard and Symonds, at the other end, gave the former a very good support.
Though the fast bowlers weren’t so effective, Indians were extremely delighted with Rudra Prathap Singh’s efforts to send the two crucial batsmen, Symonds(Bowled out) and Hogg(magnificent run out with a great reflex)back to the pavilion, at the extremely critical time when Indians were in urgent need of wickets to survive the war. With the loss of these two settled batsmen, the kangaroos lost their stability and the tail-enders couldn’t get the best out of the Indian bowling attack.
This is an example of how people or a team of people with ‘beyond the limits of self-appraisal’ attitude go down the drain as a penalty for the same attitude. We may now expect Ponting to try hit back with these words: “We’ve just lost the war. We’re here to win the battle”
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