BOWLED…..!!!! BOWLED…..!!! INDIA BOWLED AWAY…..!!!!!

Javed Ali, SQUARE CUT, YaHind Sports

Indian wickets fell like nine pins against some hostile fast bowling by the South Africans in the 2nd One Day International, being played at Kingsmead, Durban South Africa. Team India lost the match with a whopping margin of 157 runs owing to poor batting display. India went into the match, demoralized after losing the warm-up game against Rest of South African team, with the first ODI being abandoned due to Heavy rain in Johannesburg. Greame Smith the South African captain won the toss and elected to bat first on a bouncy track, he himself lost his wicket To Zaheer Khan who has just returned to Indian team after satisfying season at home and abroad, Zaheer Khan's initial spell was fine enough to earn him The other opener's wicket, Munaf Patel playing for the first time at South African pitches bowled superbly to get 2 wickets for 39 in his ten overs. The Proteas, at one stage were 3 down for 63 went on to accumulate 248 runs in their allotted 50 overs with a brilliant century from Jacques Kallis, who Struck and unbeaten 119 with 15 hits to the fence, he was particularly severe on Harbhajan Singh who went wicket-less for 59 runs in his 10 overs. There is a Chinese saying " A journey of 100 miles start with a single step ", in the current scenario of One-day matches a score of 248 is not difficult But a gettable target and especially for Team India who holds the tag of a strong batting line-up. Without the services of Sehwag India opened with Wasim Jaffer and Sachin Tendulkar, it was a disastrous start to the one day career of Wasim, he lost His wicket on the 3rd ball of the innings bowled by Shaun Pollock, Mohammed Kaif promoted to go one-down started to repair the early damage done, In company of Sachin who was striking from the other end, Kaif succumbed to a rising delivery by the same bowler. The responsiblilty once again fell on the shoulders of skipper Rahul Dravid, but it was a bad day for him, he was clean bowled by a beauty fro Langeveldt, Which triggered the collapse, soon Sachin was also sent back by Andre Nel who was bowling with enormous pace and bounce caputuring 4 wickets for Just 13 runs in 8 overs. Kallis already in the limelight with the century subsided his thirst getting 3 wickets for only 3 runs, later named Man of the Match. It is quiete evident from the miserable batting performance from the Indian batsmen, that they did not have any home-work done, on how to combat Fast bowling and to play on such bouncy wickets en-route to South Africa, the forthcoming matches may cost them dearly if they do not improve.