War of Lords: Thanks to Aleem Dar

Never was an ODI series more interesting than this one between India and England. Having taken the initial advantage of 3-1, the English looked at an outright victory, but Indians had different plans. They make some spectacular performances, not making them look lost and set an exotic platform for the final ODI on Saturday.

Winning the toss, Mr. Wall made the right decision to bat first, that’s our strength. To add to worse of matters, Indian always have the knack of winning the toss on deciders and then taking decision which never goes their way. Not to blame them for that, let’s carry on. With the openers looking in the best of ODI forms, India was definitely looking for a 300, if not more.

First ball could have easily been the last ball for saurav; and the way luck supported him, it seemed saurav didn’t want to stay in the middle; but was forced by the external force of fortune. Finally, saurav won the battle and walked off. Cards had to give up. Seeing his luck, he probably wanted to try hands on some lottery tickets or thambola [ha…ha…]. Gambhir to come in, but I always felt it was now or then Dravid would soon come to the middle. Not long before that happened, and it looked that the best two of the TRILOGY would fire guns this day.

But our man had pledged today to get the two men out. Who? Flintoff? I hoped that was true. But the pledge happened somewhere from the referee room and it was none other than Aleem Dar. It was like ‘England… Get eight of the Indian wickets. Two others will be my responsibility.’ All English men had to do was appeal on close calls, Aleem would make the conversions. Dravid, the first bakra… incoming delivery from Flintoff, missed everything on its way to Prior’s gloves but the umpire heard a nick. One mistake… it happens in big matches. After all, they are also humans, tend to make mistakes. Not far away was the second mistake awaiting, a ball out side off of driving length, Sachin tried on the up to get a nick on his pad, the ball and bat never making contact… he’s gone.

Sachin fell for the third time to the umpiring gimmick in this series; Saurav once and Dravid twice… if I remember right and, Peterson fell once to the umpire trap but he was rescued. Different rules are applied for each country, that’s the first rule in the book of cricket. This looked like, with the holy month of Ramzan closing in, Aleem made offering to Allah, two bakras, in the form of Sachin and Dravid. That was not a Great Spirit from the umpire. Things would have been right, if at least one of the two men were called back, after looking at the big screen play back.

But India is not about these two men alone. Uthappa, the man of the last ODI looked good until he massacred a ball outside off stump, to hit it straight to mid off. Yuvraj, never looked in the best of form and trying to work out a single, made some catching practice to the short and wide slip. Dhoni had to bat with the tail, the tail which cannot stay for long, didn’t on that day as well. Before Dhoni could show some fireworks in the end, the team stumbled down for 187.

Zaheer, leading the attack got Prior leg before in his first over. Aleem wanted England to win, why not, he has pledged already. So that was turned down. But the very next over, RP got both the openers out. This was to happen, they were not the best English batsmen, it was expected that Bell and Kevin would be in the middle soon. Continuing his brilliant form, Bell scored freely before getting run out by Peterson. Though Sachin got the man out, it was KP, whose name should have been there in the bracket against bell. Soon the captain joined and rejoiced the English victory in lesser than 40 overs.

Interesting statistics from the match that was missing:

Sachin c Prior b Flintoff (helped Aleem) 30

Dravid c Prior b Flintoff (helped Aleem) 0

Though Mascarenes got three Indian wickets, it was Aleem Dar whose one man show deserved him the Man of the Match. Nobody can give a better match winning performance than the kind of talent shown here.

Paul should have thanked Him whole heartedly. I would have done that if I was in his place. You never get the best ones so effortlessly ever.