Indian campaign ends

Champions trphy

Australia eked out a last-ball victory against Pakistan to end India’s chances of advancing to the semi-final stage of the ICC Champions Trophy in South Africa. India’s dominating victory over West Indies was not enough to catapult them to the next stage as Australia and Pakistan finished as the top 2 teams from this group. This means that we will now have Australia and England battle it out in the first of the semi-finals while Pakistan take on New Zealand in the second.

It was a day of dramatic possibilities as both Australia and India stood with a chance of making it to the semi-finals from Group A. Pakistan had already qualified. For India to move on, Australia needed to lose or tie with Pakistan followed by a thumping Indian victory over WI. The first part never happend even though that match went into a climactic finish. However, some decent Indian bowling and an unbeaten career-best 79 from Virat Kohli did ensure that the latter happened. With that, India’s pathetic campaign at the Champions Trophy came to an end.India came into the tour without two of their top recent performers in Sehwag and Zaheer. They lost Yuvraj even before they could begin their campaign. Right from the start India struggled to tighten their opposition. Wayward bowling from Ishant and Bhajji made matters worse. Inexplicable changes in batting and bowling orders didn’t help either. A wash-out game against Australia pushed India further down the barrel. It would have been more honourable going down fighting against the Aussies than get 1 point from that game and then depend on other teams to push you through to the semis. In the match against Pakistan, India were set for victory when poor umpiring did the attacking Raina in.The only silver lining from the 3 matches that India played was Nehra’s bowling. He kept the pressure whenever he came to bowl and always picked up wickets. India also looked good in their fielding efforts, a result of having a very young team. Let’s hope our team picks up the pieces from here and comes up with a better performance in their next outing.