Australian performance: a treat to watch!

I seriously cannot express how wonderful it was to watch an international quality cricket match. The match just finished 2 minutes back, and I was so thrilled with the Australian performance, that I just had to write about it.

For those unaware of it, the match was Australia vs Pakistan, and was the 2nd semi-final. Pakistan bat first and set a huge target of 192 for the Australians. The point at which I started watching the match, Aus was 104/5 and needed 88 from 44 balls. That meant going 12 per over for over 7 overs.

Cameron White was one of the batsmen at the crease and was scoring only on sixes. The other batsmen was Michael Hussey. What a visual treat it was, to watch them bat. Australia needed 48 of the last 3 overs (16 per over). That reduced to 34 off 2 overs and finally 18 off the last over. The last over went like this: 1,6,6,4,6.

From what was (as Harsha Bhogle put it) "a possible but improbable" situation to win from, Australia managed to win and enter their first ICC T20 WC final.

As usual after watching a performance of such high caliber, I compared the Australian team to our Indian side. The two major things which our team lacks are the thirst to win, and the ability to hold their nerves in high pressure situations. Of course many will disagree with me on the thirst-to-win part, but in my opinion, the senior Indian cricketers (Sachin excluded) have taken their positions for granted. The money is flowing in and cricket to them has lost its priority.

Secondly, the sensible batting displayed by the tail enders was amazing. They watch the ball and play, unlike our Indian side who either play baseball, or do not know to bat at all.

It was truly a thriller of a match, and I truly enjoyed it completely. Best of luck to Australia in the up coming finals, and I hope the Indian team picks a few pointers from their performance today.