Great end to the world cup 2011. Both India and Sri Lanka lost one match each at the group stage, India Against South Africa ( a mathc they should have easily won ) and Sri Lanka agaionst Pakistan
Knock out stage , India beat Australia, with good contributions from Tendular , Yuvraj. Ponting scored a century but Aussies lost, something very similar to what used to happen with Temndulkar. Just shows the resilience of this India team. Several small to medium contributions from got us to the total of 260. Very creditable chase.
In Semis India outplayed Pakistan, Tendulkar scoring a scratchy but most valuable 85 (4 lives ). In Tedulkar;s case it always used to be excellent, clinical inninings cutr short by one mistake. For a change this was different. Good bowling and fielding performance from India. India beat Pakistan for the fifth time ( no losses till now) in world cup.
Against Sri Lanka, a good start by India fielding first, excellent fielding and bowling to start with completely undone by terrible bowling and fielding inb the last 5 overs, Last 5 overs , India gave 63 runs. Jayawardena scoring a fantastic 100. A total of 275 was a tall order especially chasing in world cup final with all the pressuer and that too playing in front of home crowd.
Sehwag getting out to the second ball of the match and Tendulkar looking very good but getting out for 18 with the score reading 31, it looked a lost casue and a familiar thing. This time for a change , as had been happening right through the tournament, Virat Kohli for sometime, Gambhir and Dhoni,who promoted himself ahead of Yuvraj to have the right left combination going, played very well and took India through to the total. Excellent and timely knock by Dhoni , who had looked woefully out of touch till the final.
Excellent team effort with major contributions from Yuvraj, Tendulkarm Zaheer , Raised their game in the the knock out stage and almost every one in the team and in the final , a grand knock by Dhoni, Captain cool.
It was in a way , revenge for the Quarters loss to Sri Lanka way back in 1996. One distinctly rememembers , that India chasing a not great total of 250+ was comfortably placed at 100 for 1 or 2 , once Tendular got out for 60+, the entire team collapsed.
