Kiwis are hungry and Indians are triumphant

After wounded badly in Bangladesh, Kiwi morale is bit down but I feel this series will help them to come out of Bangla disaster. Although they don't have much star studded line-up but there are players who can turn things around for them. I feel Brendon McCullum, Daniel Vettori and Ross Taylor have to play big role. If these 3 guys performs to their potential then youngsters will get lot of inspiration and that can prove handy for Kiwis to get something out of the tour.Two uncapped players included in the side are also very capable as we saw in Bangladesh series where Williamson hit century in one of the one-day match and that too on turning track so things look somewhat positive for the Kiwis.

On the other hand Indians are confident after their great performance against mighty Aussies and will have upper hand in the series but India have some injury worries and that can prove costly to them in context of the series as Sehwag, Laxman, Harbhajan, Gambhir, Ishant all got injured during last series, even Sachin Tendulkar is having few niggles. Major worry for India is the form of great Rahul Dravid as he didn't look at his best during last two series against Sri Lanka and Australia. So India have to be careful in their approach to the series and have to pick 11 fit men. Good thing for India is that two youngsters in Raina and Pujara have performed well in whatever opportunity they got and that will make Indian Team relax as they have enough replacements. On the bowling side India will rely on spin duo of Harbhajan and Pragyan Ojha. They will also be hoping for some help from their fast bowlers especially Zaheer Khan who can be deadly with both old and new ball. All  in all everything is on stake for India and Kiwis will not lose anything if they will be defeated and if Kiwis will win then that will be bonus for them.

Team India failed miserably at T20 WC and proved me correct

Finally Team India is out of the T20 WC losing their all Super 8 matches and proved my predictions right. I mentioned it in my preview post clearly that India will not perform well in this World Cup and will not even make it to the semis and it actually happened. I also predicted that 4 semi-finalists will be Australia, England, Sri-Lanka and South Africa and this also almost proved right as except South Africa all three teams which I predicted are in semis, so its good to see I can analyse the game well and my experience of watching cricket for 20 years coming handy. Coming to India’s performance I must say it is result of few factors and that too in percentage like IPL fatigue I rate 30% responsible, Team Selection I rate 25 %, Poor decisions by captain I rate 30% and players attitude I rate 15% responsible for the debacle. People are saying Raina played well but I must say his performance in World Cup have put question mark on his ability to play on fast and bouncy wickets and he did not look technically sound against short pitched deliveries so I feel he is failure to me. Talking about Mr. Murali Vijay I must say after scoring century in IPL he was flying high now his poor performance in World Cup has shown him his class and I feel if he is having some shame then he have to drop himself from the team because our chairman of selector will not going to drop him because both are from Chennai and this proves zonal bias exists in team selection. One great mistake India did in picking up the team for this World Cup is of leaving out Robin Utthappa I feel Utthappa was the strong contender for opening slot instead of Vijay simply because Utthappa played on fast and bouncy wicket of Bangalore in IPL and scored heavily on that wicket hence Barbados wicket was tailor made for him playing in Barbados because he was used  to play on that kind of fast and bouncy wicket but I feel selectors are selecting team more on state bias rather looking at larger interest of the team. Even after debacle in World Cup, selectors have not learnt their lessons and did not selected Robin Utthappa for the upcoming Zimbabwe Tour and that is the height of foolishness. I wish God save Indian cricket from these foolish and opportunists selectors otherwise debacle like World Cup will happen regularly.

WC T20 in knockout stage

With league rounds ended without any upsets and super 8s started started bang for Australia, England and South Africa. Today India lost to Australia and again old woes of short pitched bowling haunted India badly and I must say this will haunt badly to India in coming matches as well. They thrown out of the last WC because of short pitch bowling and probably same will happen  in this WC as well. Tough time ahead for Dhoni & Co. as they have to win next two matches and its do or die situation for India. Looking at WC I still back Sri Lanka as favourites to win this tournament and now Australia and England are look like strong contenders to win it as well. For Australia this is very important tournament as they couldn't win any of the last two editions so they are hungry and that makes them deadly. England has come into this tournament with lot of grit and the way they entered into the super 8's they are lucky so they have good chance. I feel Sri Lanka, Australia, England and South Africa will go in semis. For India I don't think they have any chance after today's match because in coming matches other team will exploit their weakness. In league stages every big team got the chance to play atleast one match against weaker team so they made it to the super 8s but here on thing will be very competitive and any lapse will cost dearly so all the teams have to be on their toes.

T20 World Cup in knockout stage

With league rounds ended without any upsets and super 8s started started bang for Australia, England and South Africa. Today India lost to Australia and again old woes of short pitched bowling haunted India badly and I must say this will haunt badly to India in coming matches as well. They thrown out of the last WC because of short pitch bowling and probably same will happen  in this WC as well. Tough time ahead for Dhoni & Co. as they have to win next two matches and its do or die situation for India. Looking at WC I still back Sri Lanka as favourites to win this tournament and now Australia and England are look like strong contenders to win it as well. For Australia this is very important tournament as they couldn't win any of the last two editions so they are hungry and that makes them deadly. England has come into this tournament with lot of grit and the way they entered into the super 8's they are lucky so they have good chance. I feel Sri Lanka, Australia, England and South Africa will go in semis. For India I don't think they have any chance after today's match because in coming matches other team will exploit their weakness. In league stages every big team got the chance to play atleast one match against weaker team so they made it to the super 8s but here on thing will be very competitive and any lapse will cost dearly so all the teams have to be on their toes.