A LOSS AS GOOD AS A WIN-RAJKOT STARTER

England were lucky to win the toss& electing to make first use of the pitch at RAJKOT Stadium. The beautiful Stadium with a pavilion resembling a miniature of Lords was good enough for England to make Merry after their return to India celebrating Christmas. England made maximum use of the healthy pitch which provided fluent runs.An ideal Pitch for an encounter between Bat & Ball. Captain Cook& surprisingly Ian Bell as opener certainly took full advantage of the Toss they won hitting the Indian Pacers all over the Stadium at their will & pleasure. Ian Bell was leading from the front, a battle which ultimately turned out to be a challenging one in every respect of the game. Ian bell who made 85 runs From 96 Balls with 9 4s& a 6 was unfortunate to miss his most deserving century when he got himself ran out by Rahane of the Indian Squad. All the leading batsmen of England did their job well & finally posted a challenging score of 325 on the board .India needed 326 to win.In normal conditions a difficult total to achieve playing second. India rested Cheteswar Poojara of home ground.An extremely wise decision to do so because Poojarara just on the previous day played for nearly 12 hours continuously at The same ground& indeed needed rest.He was playing in the Domestic Ranji Trophy match for his home state Sourashtra.He had made a triple century in the match. Mahendra Singh Dhoni ,the Indian skipper had taken a wise decision not to give bowling to Yuvraaj Singh while India was fielding,obviously reserving Yuvraaj to do his job as a Batsman.. India in reply started their innings earnestly ,with Gautam Gambhir& Rahane opening Their innings. Gambhir ,for a change ,did a good job in the company of Rahane scoring a fluent 52 runs from equal number of balls with 9 hits to the fence.Rahane also did his duty well scoring47 from57 balls with 7 fours. The first wicket of Rahane fell at 96 on board in the 17 th over. Thereafter Gambhir also followed suit in the 19th over at 102/2. This wicket brought Yuvaraaj singh& Virat Kohli together.Kohli ,however,took exit with a brief score of 15 runs. Yuvraaj Singh stayed upto the expectation of his captain & did justice scoring 61 Glorious runs from 54 balls with 8 fours& a six over the rope. The score read 4/198 in the 35th over. Dhoni & Raina together provided entertaining cricket with contribution of their might. Raina scored a 50& Dhoni made 32 from 24balls with 4 Sixes over the rope. Both fell unfortunately.when Dhoni fell attempting yet another six which was a very appropriate attemptbat that stage of the game.Dhoni's wicket fell at 6/271. Thereafter the match was an affair of suspence ,though India finished their innings just short of 10 runs to win.the final score of India read 316. The so called tailenders did a fine job. Though India lost the match ,it looked as good as a win giving hopes to keep their Prospects of winning the series alive. The next match at Kochi on 15th of January at 12 noon(IST) is likely to be an affairs of battle in which Cheteswar Poojara also might show his presence SreedharanMundanat 12th Jan2013 at 5-20AM(IST)