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InDepth headlines national business sports cricket regional entertainment technology world travel autos health | in-depth coverage > India in Australia 2003-04 > India live up to ‘chokers’ tag, lose first final at MCG 16.57 IST 06th Feb 2004 By Manish Kumar India lived up to the ‘chokers’ tag, coming up with a pathetic batting performance and losing the first of the best-of-three finals to Australia by 7 wickets at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on February 6. Playing like true world champions, the Aussies raced to victory in just 40.1 overs. Chasing a victory target of 223 runs, Australia scored 224/3 with Damien Martyn and Andrew Symonds remaining unbeaten on 20 and 10 respectively. Adam Gilchrist gave his team a fiery start thanks to some poor bowling by Ajit Agarkar and Laxmipathy Balaji. Mush to the delight of the most dangerous batsman in the world, Agarkar and Balaji gave him room in abundance, which allowed him not only to free his arms but also dispatch the ball to the boundary with the speed of a bullet. Baffling was the decision by Indian skipper Sourav Ganguly of not giving the new ball to Irfan Pathan. With seven fours Gilchrist raced to 38 off just 19 balls. But the 20th ball he faced resulted in his dismissal. Coming round the wicket, Balaji pitched one short, Gilchrist hooked and Sachin Tendulkar took an easy catch at fine-leg. Australia 48/1 in 6 overs. Australian skipper Ricky Ponting not only top scored for his side but also overtook Matthew Hayden, who at the other end, was a little slow in his scoring. Ponting scored 88 runs that came off just 80 balls with the help of seven fours and two sixes. He was adjudged the Man of the Match. Ponting and Hayden were involved in a partnership of 139 runs and it looked like they both would take their team to victory but Balaji broke their partnership taking Hayden’s catch off his own bowling. The third umpire had to be called for the decision, as it looked like a bump ball, but the third umpire Daryl Harper correctly ruled Hayden out. In his next over, Balaji had Ponting caught behind by Rahul Dravid but by then the Australian skipper had brought his team well within sights of victory. Earlier, Ganguly won the toss and elected to bat. Australian new ball bowlers Jason Gillespie and Brett Lee came out ruthlessly on the Indian openers Sachin and Virender Sehwag. They kept the Indian openers on the backfoot by constantly bowling short, not giving any room whatsoever. The Aussies’ gameplan soon bore fruit when in the third over, Gillespie ‘blinded’ Sehwag by a bouncer, who gloved an easy catch to Gilchrist. Sehwag scored 3 runs. Lee, feeling supremely confident after his awesome bowling display at Perth, got the prized scalp of Sachin. Lee first bowled some short-pitched balls to Sachin and then cleverly pitched one just short of the length. Sachin, expecting another short delivery, opened a little bit, with his right toe pointing to covers, and that left a little gap in his defence, which was enough for the ball to zip through and shatter his off-stump. Sachin scored 8 runs. When Dravid reached 12 with a four to the mid-wicket fence off Gillespie, he crossed 7000 runs in ODI cricket. When it looked like that Laxman was again coming up with another ‘dream knock’ against the Aussies, he failed to keep a Brad Williams’ delivery down and was caught at backward point by Symonds. Laxman scored 24 runs with two superb fours. Dravid (12) played an atrocious shot to hand over the Aussies his wicket. Chasing a wide delivery from Ian Harvey, Dravid edged and gave a simple catch to Hayden at first slip. And it was not only the kind of the shot that Dravid played, equally mystifying was the fact that earlier in that over only Dravid had tried to play a similar delivery but missed. And just when a partnership was building between skipper Ganguly and Yuvraj Singh, Harvey took his second wicket. Trying to play a square cut, Ganguly edged a delivery into the hands of Gilchrist, who was standing upto the stumps to the gentle pace of Harvey. Ganguly scored 6 runs and half of his side was back in the pavilion with just 75 runs on the board and the 21st over still in progress. Then Ponting decided to go for the kill and brought Lee back in the attack, who dismissed Yuvraj with his first ball of his new spell, caught behind the stumps by Gilchrist. Yuvraj scored 21 runs. With India staring down the barrel at 75/6, Hemang Badani and Ajit Agarkar put up a partnership of 102 runs. Agarkar, who has hardly done justice to his batting talent over the years, today scored 53 runs off 62 balls with four fours and two sixes. He was caught at point by Lee off Michael Clarke. Badani top scored for India with an unbeaten 60 and ran out of partners as India were bowled out for 222 runs in 49 overs. The second final is in Sydney on Sunday and India would really have to pull up their socks if they are keen to leave this ‘chokers’ tag. in-depth coverage > India in Australia 2003-04 > |
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