Cricket

INDIA starts with a win

                                             The new Indian team with a blend of seniors and young players with aggression and a sense of winning habit is the flavor of the month. As now Dhoni’s team believes more in collective effort than individual contribution to defeat any side in the world. The same solidarity was shown by the men in blue as they started their march against
Pakistan with a winning note. The main highlight of the match was good and disciplined performance by Indians in the entire department. As they restricted in-form opponent Pakistan to a mere 239 in 50overs inspite of a flying start by Salman Butt (50).And a knock of Afridi  31off and Yousuf 83 off 88  could help Pakistan to set big target for India.                                                 Spinners did the job for Indians as Harbhajan Singh (1-29) and Murli (0-36) dried up the middle overs, while Sachin Tendulkar clipped in with two vital wickets as the
Pakistan late order failed to finish with a flourish.                         This modest target of 240 was never easy to get on this dual paced track at Nehru Stadium ,more so with  pace attack of Shoib Akhtar and Umar Gul.It looked even more difficult as Shoib trapped Tendulkar(4) in front of wickets with 14 runs on the board.                     But after that it was complete dominating batting performance with good partnerships were being build for all the wickets as Gautam Gambhir(44) , Sourav Ganguly (39),Yuvraj Singh (58) and Dhoni (63) were among the contributors.M.S. Dhoni was declared man of the match for his brilliant knock of 63.