Day of Minnows:

Day of Minnows:
April 17th, 2007: It was truly a Red Letter Day

for the minnows:Bangladesh and Ireland.
While Bangladesh triggered an Indian batting
collapse and chased the target to win by 5
wickets; Ireland shocked the world by bundling
the Pakistanis for a mere 133 and then
reached the total with 3 wickets to spare.

IND vs BAN: India won the toss and surprisingly
chose to bat, which proved to be a blunder.
Sehwag once again proved to be India's biggest
liability. Yet again, he got out cheaply showing
that he had learnt nothing from his past
failures. As for the rest of the Indian batting,
it was at best, Shambolic. Only Ganguly and
Yuvraj batted well to give India some
respectability. But thanks to a great batting
collapse(5 wickets for 2 runs), India landed up
with 191. Take away the 32 run partnership for
the last wicket and you'll find India would have
scored even lesser. Indians have to play positive
cricket if they need to lift this cup. Although Mortaza, Rafique, and Salem
bowled tightly, Indians helped Bangladesh to pile
pressure on them by playing sedate cricket.

If India can't play Bangladeshi spinners well,
then what could they achieve against Sri Lanka."

"Dravid! Please tell your players to stop modelling and start performing! Tell them that apart from dancing on TV ads, they also have the duty to fulfill their foremost duty:Playing GOOD and POSITIVE Cricket"

If India batted pathetically, Bangladesh did the opposite, they stroked the
ball nicely and went for their shots. Dravid
helped their cause by over-bowling his pacers
instead of relying on his spinners.
I could not help but appreciate the Bangladeshi younsters(paticularly Tamim Iqbal and Mushfiqur Rahim) who belted the Indian attack all over the park.
IF a bunch of talented Teenagers can slog Indian bowlers over the park on a difficult pitch, why can't greats like Sachin and Dravid play positive even against amateur bowlers??? I guess the answer is ATTITUDE.

It was sad to see Dravid setting defensive fields instead of attacking fields, and just hoping for the Bangladeshi's to make
mistakes. Why didn't he use his spinners regularly??
I feel that the match had been lost
there. In the end, Bangladesh romped home with 5
wickets and 8 balls to spare.

Thanks to their Shambolic performance, India have landed themselves in a situation
where they have to beat Bermuda and Srilanka by
huge marigins, or else, it's Bye Bye India.

Ireland vs Pak:
This was the surprise package of the tournament,

Ireland beat Pakistan by 3 Wickets.
Well, Pakistan were hampered by the absence of
Afridi due to disciplinary action, Akthar and
Asif due to injury(actually doping charges).

However, they batted very badly to score a paltry 133.
Ireland on the other hand bowled tightly and
harldy allowed the Pakistani batsmen to settle
down. Akmal was the only exception and he scored
a valiant 27.
Ireland realised that this was their chance to
create history. They batted sensibly despite
losing regular wickets thanks to Neil 'O' Brien,
who scored a very valuable half century. Rain
interrupted play and the target was revised to
127. Howver it proved to be a mini hiccup as
Ireland despite losing 3 Wickets to Sami and
Ifthikar Rao Anjum, romped home due to Kevin 'O'
Brien. The match was finished in a fitting way
when their skipper Trent Johnson smashed Azhar
Mehmoud over long-on for six. Thus Pakistan were
knocked out of the world cup even before the
quarters.
Hence, the day truly belonged to the
minnows.