Cricket News: India win Asia Cup 2010: Australia lose against England
On a day that mattered most, India's seam attack lived up to the occasion as they helped the men in blue win the all important Asia Cup 2010, knocking over tournament favourites and the only undefeated team in the series, SriLanka.
The victory meant that extra something for the Indians as only two days ago they were subjected to humiliation at the hands of the same team whom they now won the Trophy against and thus having the last say in the tournament with the history books now reflecting India as the ultimate winners of the 2010 Asia Cup. As a result, when one would look back at the series, the only thing that would mater is the winner, despite whatever happened throughout the series, as the ones with the Asia Cup are the ones who are remembered.
The victory also meant that India won the Asia cup after 6 years, winning their last Asia Cup trophy in 2004 and also denying SriLanka a hat-trick of Asia Cup victories.
To India’s advantage, they won the toss and elected to bat first and thus bowled under lights with conditions that supported all of their seamers.
Ashish Nehra lead the bowling charge as he bowled superbly, moving the bowl both ways of the seam. He got that extra bounce and thus left the SriLankan batsmen completely bamboozled which eventually lead to a batting collapse of the tournament favourites, SriLanka, who lost wickets at regular intervals.
All three of the pacers, Praveen Kumar, Zaheer Khan and Ashish Nehra bowled a good, tight line throughout their spells and thus did not give the SriLankan batsmen any room to experiment.
Looking back at the match in detail, Sri Lanka bowling first did well initially to restrict the Indians however the difference was that they could not finish the job as India managed to bat through their allotted quota of 50 over’s and thus posting a challenging total of 268 for the SriLankan batsmen to chase.
It was a disappointing day for SriLanka as their worst nightmare came to life and on the all important day of the final, they were sloppy in the fielding department and even the SriLankan batsmen never looked to be in the chase. They lost their openers and even their inform batsmen Tillakaratne Dilshan early on in the innings.
As a result of this early collapse, the Indians did not lose their grip on the affairs of the match as they managed to get wickets at regular intervals and eventually won the game comfortably by 81-runs.
For India, Dinesh Karthik was the top-scorer, making 66 runs. In the bowling department, Ashish Nehra claimed four wickets as he played a key role in reducing the hosts to 51-5 in only the 16th over of the final as the entire SriLankan team collapsed by the 45th over.
In the other match of the day, England capitalized on their first match victory by putting another win under their belt as they now lead the 5 match series 2-0.
The victory for the English side yesterday was a result of an overall team effort as both the bowlers and the batsmen complimented each other in their respective areas of expertise, helping England cruise to a victory against Australia who batting first, posting a total score of 239 in their allotted 50 overs.
Strauss, Pietersen and Collinwood were the main anchors of the English batting helping the English sail to victory.
For Australia, it was a rare ordinary outing as their batsmen struggled to time the ball. However all credit must be given to the English bowlers who noticed this bit of hesitancy and thus took great advantage of the situations and kept bowling with a disciplined line and length.
The 2-0 score line would now make it a touch difficult however not impossible for Australia to come back and win the series. Their batting is missing that Australian spark and thus the bowlers despite their efforts are being unable to defend the small totals.
But Australia does have that knack of rising to the occasion and with their backs against the wall one could be sure that in the next outing we can expect something different from the kangaroos.
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