Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s Team India stormed into the semi-finals of the 2015 World Cup at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) this Thursday, defying sceptics with a comprehensive show of sustained brilliance.
This alluring new form with the bat, ball and fielding, not to mention astute captaincy, was not just on show against Bangladesh who were packed off from the tournament with consummate ease and a 109 run victory, but against all the six teams that India has downed before the Bangla Tigers lost their way after an intense and inspired bout of bowling.
Though this time it was on the scintillating century of Rohit Sharma (137) that Team India constructed its victory, Dhoni says the goodness of it all is that in various matches, various players at various levels of the team have worked in tandem to keep Team India on the top. “We may not be in the list of top run-getters but we are in the semi-finals, which looks good, because it means everyone is pitching in,” he said at the post-match Press conference.
India’s bowlers have been the story of the tournament for restraining the opposition, building partnerships and mounting enough pressure to compel the batsmen to step out and pay for it with life.
Be it Umesh Yadav, who has acquired the amazing ability to keep bowling at the right spot at a bullet speed of 145 km/hr (he scalped four in the quarter-final), or the slower ones from Mohit Sharma or Shami’s precision bowling, the pace department has won kudos from greats like Richard Hadlee and others for their discipline and asphyxiating accuracy.
On paper, Bangladesh were never in contention against India but Rohit Sharma’s watchful century indicated how sorted out India have become under Dhoni, who might be captaining the last World Cup of his career. Sharma saw through the initial squeeze by Bangla quicks Rubel Hossain and Taskin not getting unsettled by the falling run rate. He batted till India were 273 and decorated his innings with 14 boundaries and three, sixes.
Down the line, Suresh Raina provided both anchor and aggression, scoring a quick 65 for himself while Sharma opened the blade to free-flowing runs. From thereon, the bowlers took over and the show was all Indian henceforth.
From here, it’s just two matches that Dhoni has to take care of and they will be against much bigger teams. With a six-day break before the big semi-final in Sydney, against Australia or Pakistan, the skipper has enough time to recoup, re-group, re-plan and resurrect for yet another victory for a billion hearts beating for him.