India pulled off a memorable 2-0 win against Australia in the best-of-three finals to triumph in what is the final edition of the annual Commonwealth Bank (CB) tri-series.
Team will be back on 6th March with the trophy in their hands and glittering smile on faces. Indian team has written history in golden words with this victory as it is not only after 23 long years India defeated Australia but the first tri-series win by India in Australian soil.
It is well known that the only team who can dare to challenge the world champs is only the Indians. But it was not digestible for the arrogant hosts that these T20 winners can beat them. This is the reason why the Kangaroos were involved in all possible efforts to lower down the confidence of Indian players for last 3 months. Started from cheatings of Sydney test umpires the chain continued to criticizing Indian players and cheap comments on them. Even Kangaroo audience and crowd was also not behind in it. Earlier Ponting and Symionds targeted Harbhajan and later it was Ishant sharma case. But finally the Australian team is proved to be like ‘great Cry, little wool’. Team India pushed the flying Aussies back to floor.
The series started on 3rd February 2008, Sunday with first match between Australia and India and ended on 4th March with a battle between the same teams in Brisbane. After a relatively quiet start, action in the Commonwealth Bank Tri-Series has started to warm up. The three participating nations – India, Australia and Sri Lanka are breathing neck to neck, promising to take the battle for the finals right down to the wire. Sri Lanka was out of the finals and the two remaining teams had tough competition. The two teams were face to face for winning the victory cup which is finally snatched by Dhoni’s team in second and concluding final on 4th March.
While India has sported a young team under the leadership of Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Australia has maintained the usual blend of youth and experience under the experienced guidance Ricky Ponting. With Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman being the notable exclusions, youngsters like of Gautam Gambhir, Rohit Sharma, Robin Uthappa and Suresh Raina have been asked to fill in their shoes.
The tournament has generated significant amount of interest among the people, with spectators turning out in large numbers to watch the matches. With the competition getting more intense in the final matches, the series was surely to be a humdinger.
Much drama had, however, been played off the field before the start of the Commonwealth Bank Tri-Series. Harbhajan singh is the centre of the ugly war of words not only before the start of the tour but during the whole series. It forced to look the future of the series uncertain that time. Harbhajan was suspended for three Tests after January’s second Test at the Sydney Cricket Ground for allegedly calling Symonds a monkey, a suspension that was overturned at a subsequent International Cricket Council hearing.
Later during the series, there were charges on the batsman Mathew Hayden of making verbal attack on spin bowler Harbhajan Singh. Hyden called the off-spinner as an “obnoxious little weed” while talking to a radio. But Hayden escaped after a warning from the officials and with it the matter was closed.
The racism attack is not over with it as in the first finals Australian media blamed Bhajji to make monkey gestures toward the crowd but finally they were also proved wrong as he didn’t do anything like this. Harbhajan got clean chit from ICC soon.
Harbhajan dismissed Hyden and Symonds to pavilion during the finals and thus took his revenge to their statements in the ground and outside. After winning the series he reminds Guru Govind Singh words, “One sikh is enough for all” and indirectly gave a stiff reply to the Aussies against their racism statements during and before the series.
The dispute between Ishant Sharma and Andrew Symonds is another crisis during the series. Australian team has complained about Ishant for pointing Andrew Symonds back to the dressing room after he bowled him out. He is fined 15% of his match fee for a level 1.6 offense.
As there are so many controversies associated with the series, the tour is stated a bit sour but all is well if end is well. Indian team is able to host the Indian flag in Australian soil with proud. Australian wicketkeeper Adam Gilchrist might never thought of that he will get his farewell from international cricket with such a harsh failure. Witness of Australian leadership for last one decade, Gilchrist must get a little idea that the crown of world champ is slowly getting away from Aussies. The way India won the CB series by 9 runs from Aussies in their own soil can be stated as a start of new era in the cricket history.
Sachin pulled the team to success ground with his bat again. Sachin and Uthappa together contributed much to the success. This saluted partnership had recorded two consecutive half centuries first time in last 27 years. Their brilliant start put the kangaroos under pressure.
Though Sachin gave poor performance in last a few matches and was at 11th position in ICC ranking. That time everyone is criticizing his bat. Even Dhoni also blamed him for the losses. But his wonderful performance in the last two finals against Australia Sachin is back to its top position in ICC batsmen ranking with 777points beating the Australian captain with 770 points. Sachin gave 3 consecutive 50s in Australia. He scored 63 against SriLanka, 117 and 91 in last two finals respectively against Australia. With 5 centuries and 10 fifties, he is the highest scorer of finals with1695 runs with an average 52.96.
Praveen Kumar (4/46) had shown his best performance till now against Australia. Before this, he showed his best bowling (4/31) against SriLanka in Hobart with 26-2-08. He got his second Man of the Match award of his career but first time against Australia.
Australian Captain Rickey Ponting accepted in his statements that Indian performance is better and deserves the trophy. The tour had been proved thoroughly entertaining and successful. Indian team has maintained our India on high spirits in the series. All credit goes to Indian players. Hats off to team India!
Tags: Australia, CB Series, Dhoni, India, Team India