India Crushes West Indies

We want to point out that we could have said "India Decimates West Indies" but that would have been wrong. For, 'decimating' means to select by lot and kill every 10th person. Used in the cricketing sense, that would mean getting only one out of ten players out. Which was not the case in today's match.

India bowled out West Indies. All ten of them. For only 85 runs. So, that was good.

What was not good? Sehwag getting out for a duck was not good and Pathan's bowling rhythm was not good.

Pathan's bowling figures (6 overs, 25 runs and 3 wickets) are deceiving. When a team is all out for 85 runs and a bowler gives away 25 of those runs at 4 an over, it is not a good sign. One might say 'who cares? he got 3 wickets!'. That's true but it is important to know how he got those wickets. For example, the scorecard will show that Lara was c&b Pathan. Do you know what happened, my dear readers?

Pathan got Lara's wicket by his pace - or rather, lack of it - here is how Cricinfo describes that ball:

"Pathan, who struggled getting the ball across in the first over, pitched his final delivery almost in the middle of the track. Lara shaped to pull and was surprised by the lack of pace as the ball stopped on him. Unable to react, he merely swatted it back at the equally surprised bowler"

Not only that, Pathan's bowling speed was abysmal. Most of his balls were around 70 mph. Just imagine his slower ball at this pace. He is in the danger of becoming India's Chris Harris. Not that there is anything wrong with it. No, really.

So, of the three questions India needed answers for, two remain unanswered. One question has been answered, in our opinion.

If we may digress: of course it is our opinion. Why have a blog otherwise? Then, why do we feel the need to justify statements by tagging 'in our opinion' at the end? Maybe we are not confident about what we said and hence the need for qualification. Anyway, the good news is that, from now on you won't see the phrase 'in our opinion' in our blog. If you disagree with what we have to say, you will realize much later (because, we are ahead of our times) that you were wrong.

Where were we?...yes...One question has been answered. Robin Uthappa proved that he has some 'little gray matter' in his head. Maybe not as much as the little Belgian but enough to play sensible cricket. His batting was good. He deserves to be in the playing eleven and it is hard to see how he can be kept out.

Though Karthick played well, it is very hard to see him playing in the world cup barring injuries to other players. Munaf Patel booked his spot in the playing eleven and again, it is very hard to see Sreesanth in the playing eleven barring injuries.