A Terrific Birthday Bash At Mohali

iSporter Suraj Kori gives his account of the Yuraj Singh special - the second T20 match between India and Sri Lanka.

yuvi

India pulled out an emphatic win in the second T20 international against Sri Lanka and levelled the series 1-1! The visitors who were 1-0 up in the series finally faced a good fight from the Indian team as they destroyed all the hopes of the Lankans of winning the series. And not to mention the exceptional all round performance by the birthday boy, Yuvi himself!

I don’t think anyone would have asked for a better birthday celebration! Yuvraj Singh played a terrific innings and I would say celebrated in style! The day completely belonged to him. First he did warm up on the bowling front but managed to take 3 crucial wickets giving away just 23 runs. Good strategy I would say for when the strike bowlers fail to take wickets, Yuvi being the fifth bowler complemented by his performance was just what was needed to make the Lankans sweat it out!

Not to mention that on the batting from he played a tremendously power-packed innings of 60 not out half of which was contributed by those 5 magnificent sixes! He was smashing the ball all around the ground thereby destroying all hope for the Lankan visitors. The bowlers seemed so helpless in front of him! Truly all the strategies, planned attacks and other tactics of Lankan captain Kumara Sangakkara were in vain as his bowlers couldn’t do anything to stop him. Yuvraj again proved why he is called the ‘back bone’ Indian batting. Truly ‘Singh is King’ in every sense!

Evaluating his performance in the recent past Yuvraj hasn’t been in the best of form. A lot was expected from him in the first T20 match but he for some reason couldn’t deliver and live up to the expectation. However, he turned a new leaf in this match. Was it the magic of playing on his home ground and in front of his fans? It just seemed as if he knew how the ball would turn on the pitch every single time and lead India to victory by giving a match winning performance to every spectator at Mohali!

What if in the batsman line up Yuvi was higher up in the order? I personally felt that had this been the case he would have had the opportunity to score a century or more, without doubt! Nevertheless his 60 runs did pay enough to lead India to victory and level the series.

Another highlight of the match was the fielding of both the sides. To me it felt more like a competition between the teams on which team misfields the most. For instance, if India dropped at least four clear catches and chances to field better the Lankans outdid the hosts by dropping catches of Sehwag, Dhoni and also Yuvi who eventually went on to make a half century. I’m not complaining at all as those very dropped catches made India win the matches. How about ‘dropped catches also win matches?’ Different from my earlier take on catches winning matches!

The Lankan fielding stood out and how! The Indian batsmen were kind enough and offered them run out opportunities one after the other. But the Lankans did even better by missing all of them! I’m being sarcastic here! Were these opportunities exploited to the fullest the result would have been different. This was the last T20 international played by India before the World Cup and in order to carry some momentum and respect into the World Cup they had to win this, which they did. They also made a record in making the highest run chase by any team in a T20 match!

India did a fantastic job with their performance and proved how strong a team they really are. I think if they improve their fielding and with the current batting line up which is strong I have no doubt that India would again be crowned again the T20 Champions! All in all, a great performance for India, and happy birthday (belated) Yuvi!