INDIA VS BERMUDA, MARCH 19, 2007 - part one

(Karthik Narayan)

India vs Bermuda would be a match you would normally just brush aside – who would want to watch a match of insignificance. India would have rested their best for the rest of the series, but hey! This is the cricket world cup and India is in trouble having played just one match. So what is new??

Remember the 2003 edition? India played their first match against Holland and didn’t particularly make any Indian mom proud with their heavy weather batting and sloppy fielding. And got drubbed by the mighty Aussies with a paltry score that makes my monthly movie allowance seem rather high.

Of course TIA – This Is India. Here we have freedom to choose our paths to winning and losing. Invariably we love the latter because it makes us “stronger” to face the Do or Die matches.

After all, we are only following Bapuji’s Do or die approach. Wow talk about “lage raho Munnabhai” working wonders here!

Ok just doing the match report here –

Jones joins a select few to have got a wicket off their first balls in an ODI and it narrows down further for a world cup match. For all quizzers out there like me – the wicket was Robin Uthappa.

I didn’t mug up the Bermuda team names like someone preparing for their board exams or anything – but I found one interesting name in the squad. The opening bowler – Hurdle. Now his name is totally misleading, because there is absolutely no hurdle in his bowling run-up, action and release.

Hmmm India had to score big – now that they are batting first. So what do you reckon might be a good score. My friends had this to say – 450, 500, 350… so who would score I asked… it turned out sehwag never featured in any of their claims for scores.

And to think he seems to be the one who’s making the most of this bowling attack with crisp clean strokes. This is worth watching folks!