Indians bust the invincible Aussie bubble

The Indians played the better cricket and withstood the pressure better to beat the Australians by 5 wickets in the Commonwealth Bank Trophy triangular series game at the Melbourne Cricket Ground watched by a near 50 thousand crowd on Sunday.

This grand victory by the Indians should give them the necessary confidence to make further progress in the tournament and who knows a fling in the final and the Commonwealth Bank Trophy.

As for the baggy green caps, the defeat would have tasted bitter and this reversal would have been the signal that all is not well with their cricket and they should get back to the nets and put right the wrongs they committed in the defeat.

As for the Indians, they firmly believed that if they put the early pressure on the homesters, then they had a good chance of denting Aussie pride and busting their invincible bubble.

Before the game, Indian opener Virender Sehwag had said that the Australians are running scared of losing. And his team proved it by getting under the skins of the Australians and bringing them down to earth.

When the Indians got the Aussies by the jagular early in the game, they did not loosen the grip until they suffocated them and had their batting all in shambles to bundle them all for just 159.

The bowler who made it all possible and munched with relish the early batting was the tall and lanky Ishant Sharma who has been the find of the tour for the Indians.

With a lovely high arm action, he cleverly and intelligently used his height to get the ball to rise disconcertingly off a good length and the Aussie batsmen seemed clueless to negotiate him. His amazing figures of 4 for 38 shows his dominance over the Aussie batsmen. He was adjudged the Man-of-the-Match.

He was well supported by Irfan Pathan 2 for 26 and Shanthakumar Sreesanth 3 for 31. When the Indians began the victory chase, they were uneasily placed at 102 for 5 with the batting flight in some sort of turbulence. But pilot Mahendra Singh Dhoni and co-pilot Rohit Sharma steered the flight to safety and when victory was finally achieved did not the cricketers and their multitude of supporters celebrate.

Sharma who was undone by umpire Rudi Koertzen in the game against Sri Lanka batted like a veteran and showed promise of being a great player as his career unfolds. The Aussies showed grit and determination and fought all the way. But the score they made was always not going to be enough, considering that the Indians had a strong batting line up.

Poor umpiring

Once again umpire Rudi Koertzen apparently boobed a couple of times. First was when he raised his finger to rule opener Adam Gilchrist LBW when TV replays showed that the ball had made contact with the bat before hitting the pad and then he refused to rule Tendulkar caught behind.

On this tour Koertzen has been making too many mistakes. When this happens the batsmen and bowlers are robbed.

When a batsman is given not out when he is out and vice versa, it takes the competitiveness out of the game and makes the teams wonder what might have been. We are not trying to lynch Koertzen.

We know that umpiring is no easy job. But Koertzen could overcome his mistakes if he concentrates on his job a bit more and if uncertain, he would not be faulted if he seeks the help of the third umpire.

We hope Koertzen will learn and come out better in the remaining games.

Lankans thrashed

The Sri Lankans who promised more with skipper Mahela Jayawardena shouting that they will take the cue from the Indians and go hard at the Australians, came a very poor second by tumbling to a stunning defeat at the Sydney Cricket Ground.

The batting fell to pieces after a grand knock from Kumar Sangakkara and for this collapse Jayawardena must fairly and squarely take the blame. We need not reiterate on the irresponsible shot he played. He must be having sleepless nights watching the replays.

The Lankans take on the Indians at the Manuka Oval in Canberra today and unless thy can raise their game and hit back at the Indians with a vengeance and down them, they could well kiss their chances of entering the best of three finals goodbye.

That would be a calamity considering that when they last played in the triangular, they entered the finals.

Joseph in town

Former Benedictine and CR and FC ruggerite Stanley Joseph is on holiday from the United States.

Joseph played winger for the Red Shirts in the '60s and many were the memorable tries he scored.

Some of his teammates of that time were Raji and Tony Sylva, Tony Sirimanne and Eric Roles.