http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Yuvraj-Singh-c98364, Suresh Raina steer India into semi-finals of ICC World Cup 2011
Australian dreams of defending their world title for the third consecutive time have been thrashed as hosts India defeated the Kangaroos by a handsome margin of 5 wickets in the second quarter-final of the ICC World Cup 2011 at Ahmedabad.
Star of the show for India was none other than Yuvraj Singh who guided India home from a difficult situation.
Chasing a very competitive total under lights, India were off to a flying start through http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Watson-c96326 bouncer.
However, Tendulkar found able support in the shape of http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Gautam-Gambhir-c58623 as both of them laid the platform for the middle order batsmen to finish the game.
India were in a spot of bother at one stage when their captain http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Mahendra-Singh-Dhoni-c73820 was dismissed with 74 runs needed to win but Yuvraj and Suresh Raina got into their act and constructed a superb unbeaten partnership at less than a run a ball which sealed
the game for the Men in Blue.
Yuvraj remained unbeaten on 57 runs which came off 65 balls with the help of 8 boundaries. Tendulkar and Gambhir scored 53 and 50 runs respectively to help their team cruise into the semi-finals of the showpiece event.
There was some criticism on the selection of the Indian team as they dropped Yusuf Pathan to bring back Suresh Raina but the left-hander justified his selection by playing a match-winning cameo of 34 runs.
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Brett-Lee-c48419, Shane Watson, Shaun Tait and David Hussey claimed a wicket each for Australia but all went in vain as they gave away too many scoring opportunities to the Indian batsmen.
Yuvraj was named as the Man of the Match for the fourth time in the tournament because of his outstanding innings and a couple of wickets earlier in the day.
India will now take on http://www.senore.com/Cricket/March-c74391, 2011 in what promises to be a cracker of a game.
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