Hurricane knock

Hats off to our men in blue, ably led from the front by our captain, Rohit Sharma, whose hurricane knock of 92 in just 41 balls paved the way to set a stiff target of 206 for the world champion team, Australia to chase. Of course, Australia too had a heady start by Tim Head, who carried his team with his lightening innings of 76. But due credit should go to our bowlers, Bumrah, Arshadeep and Kuldeep Yadav, who put a break on their progress to restrict them to a total of 181 for 7 and enter the Semi-final place in style.

But for our sloppy fielding and dropped catches, we could have won the match with a bigger margin to knock out the OZ team out of the semi-final reckoning.

Incidentally it is a real surprise as to why the think tank is persisting with Kohli at the opening slot, where he is not at all comfortable. Similarly both Dube and Jadeja, who played the initial IPL matches well to get included in the T-20 WC squad, seems to be struggling after that selection. Moreover, Jadeja, who is there just for his fielding skills, is found to be wanting in that area too. Ironically, he even spilled an easy catch yesterday. Hope the think tank would be wise enough to try out the bench strength. Who knows, they could prove to be better bet. Hope better sense would prevail soon.

Vinay Mahadevan,

Chennai