The Series is Ours! Again!

YES YES YES YES :D :D :D :D

Yes, India has once again snatched victory from under the opposition's noses in the final match of the series. The Lankan series concluded today, with the previous match being on wednesday. And yup, India won both! :)

Wednesday's match I missed almost fully, being in school. But once again, they dragged it to the VERY VERY end with Dravid and Dhoni's brilliant partnership of 130+ clinching India the precious victory.

Today's match however, was nothing short of brilliant. Yes, our bowling did lose its way in the middle because after having SL for 56 or so for 4, they let them score 259. All credit to Chamara Silva who played a fine knock of 107 not out. But then, our batsmen... oh.my.goodness.
Ganguly gave everyone a scare by retiring hurt halfway into the first over. But after that, Sehwag and Robin Uthappa practically tore the SL bowling attack into little tiny shreds. They blasted fours and sixes off every bowler, leaving the Lankans looking extremely lacklustre and incompetent. They also looked disgruntled and resigned. It was terrible bowling on their part and perfect timing + placement on our batsmen's part combined to take us to 100 off just 14 overs. Uthappa got his 50 but got out soon afterwards. Dinesh Karthik walked our and got out for 1 run. Disappointment. Nervousness.

Then Ganguly walked out, looking a little shaky, but fit enough to play. The entire stadium erupted in cheers to see Mr. Recently-Reliable out in the middle once again. I too cheered silently, hoping that he won't get himself injured seriously. He did not disappoint. A slight nick of his to the keeper went unnoticed by the Lankans as well as the umpire, and Ganguly capitalised on the mistake. He smacked 3 gorgeous sixes, creamed several fours and constantly ran between the wickets. His efforts led to him picking up another wonderful half-century. :)

In the midst of all this, Sehwag got himself run out in the most ridiculous fashion. He hit to ball down to third man, and ran a run. BUT BEFORE HE REACHED THE DAMN CREASE, he decided to just stop running and turn around and ball watch. Sangakkara picked up the return throw and slowly threw it back to the bowler. Note that nobody had actually realised that Sehwag could be run out. BUT BY SOME CRAZY BAD LUCK, the ball hit Sehwag's stumps, running him out, and Sehwag was caught-in-the-act being extremely lazy and careless and irresponsible about his game. Think about it. He was playing a tremendous knock, with the boundaries just flowing out of his bat. He was seeing and timing the ball to perfection, his feet were moving, he was getting into a good position to play the ball... all in all, he was in great form in the game. AND THEN, he decides to commit suicide. GEEZ, should he really be in the WC squad? I do wonder sometimes. Sigh.

Anyway, once Sehwag got out, Yuvi came in. Admittedly, he has not been in the greatest of nicks... BUT he got off the mark with a wonderful 6. That gave me hope. And in line with his emphatic start, he continued punching fours and sixes to all sides of the ground, leaving the bowlers rather stranded. Even though Dilshan did a good job pulling the run rate back, none of the other bowlers could back him up. Bandara went for almost 10 runs an over, Maharoof went for 10, many others went for over 6. Yuvraj spared almost no one in his trampling march to victory. And with Ganguly at the other end, running hard and hitting boundaries in tandem, they could do no wrong. Yuvi went on to make 95 in emphatic fashion, hitting 22 runs off the last over and securing a RESOUNDING win for India.

Suddenly, the Indian dressing room was erupting in joy, the Lankans were just plain disappointed, the crowd was going crazy and throwing water bags and bottles onto the ground, the security was rushing out with ropes to gather the players in the middle and lead them back to the dressing rooms... it was all drama.

Soon they returned for the presentation, for which we were eagerly waiting. Arun Lal went through his usual routine of intro-ing the presentation party, which was exceptionally big. Then he went on to talk to Mahela Jayawardane... pretty much the usual. Then came the Man of the Match award. They gave it to Chamara Silva for his brilliant 100. I think he deserved that. He looked pretty shocked to be receiving the award to tell the truth. Haha. But it was nice.

THEN... THEN came the Man of the Series award. Which went to... GANGULY!! :D:D
YES DADA! The team drowned him in champagne as per tradition, which was nice to see because you could tell that he really belonged. He had made the most amazing of comebacks to the Indian side along with Zaheer Khan. But what made his comeback more remarkable was the fact that almost the entire nation had him under its boot, crushing him. The media was pelting him with criticism, the public was varying between all out praise for his past achievements and complete trashing for his lack of recent performances. But he fought through all the rubbish and came back, in a HUGE way.
I admit (rather ashamedly) that I too, had given up hope on Dada, of whom I was once a BIG fan. But to see him come back like this has revived my interest and I now understand why I fell in love with the way he played during the '99 WC. At his prime, he is simply unstoppable. :) Go Dada, you really rock.
Big thumbs up to him and Zaks for having come back SO DANG WELL. <33

Then of course, Jammy came up to speak and collect the trophy :D He then called the whole team up for pictures. They all hugged and shoved each other around and shouted a lot, proving that they're still SUCH KIDS, which is why we love them. Then they finally got tame enough to allow the photographer to click. Hahahaha. I LOVE our team!

In other news, I heard that Aussie got TRASHED in a ten-wicket defeat by NZ in some random ODI. I also heard that it wasn't exactly the FULL Aussie topguns team, but there were still several top players involved. What is happening?! Have the Aussies been sabotaged? Very very strange indeed.

So there it is. Going into the WC, India has two brill series victories under its belt, something not even Australia can claim to have. Will they capitalise on this psychological advantage? Only time will tell.

Here's to an absolutely amazing WC. May the best team win. :)