Bollywood actor Aamir Khan at the end of the thrilling Semi Final between India and Australia has rightly tweeted, “Well played Australia. Thank you to the Indian team for taking us to the semis. Hard luck and well played.”
From a sportsman’s perspective India indeed played a brilliant match against the mighty Australian team and a special kudos to captain M.S. Dhoni for yet again playing a stealer performance in a crunch match, despite key batsmen failing to perform! He kept a straight face and led his side with aplomb.
Dhoni top scored for his team with a run-a-ball 65 but it was in vain as the Indians collapsed to be all out for 233 in the 47th over, chasing Australia's daunting 7 for 328. In his statement after the match, Dhoni confided that the team crumbled under pressure.
He said that the team got a brilliant start, particularly, Shikhar Dhawan playing aggressively. However in the haste for quick runs he committed the blunder of going all out for big shots. Lamenting over the dismissal of Shikhar Dhawan, Dhoni said, “Shikhar should not have played big shots because he was scoring quite freely and with the open field, he should have just batted for a few more over.”
"But overall, there is pressure when you're chasing 329 runs and we have seen in cricket that pressure makes you do things you don't really want to do," he confessed.
Praising the spinners Dhoni said, “The spinners performance was good but I feel the fast bowlers could have done slightly better than the result would have been different because the score of 329 was just above par.”
Giving no excuses for the loss captain M.S. Dhoni seemed quite contended with his team’s overall performance and applauded the boys for playing a positive cricket.
He said, “Overall, quite happy with where we were," he said. "At the start of the tournament, a lot of people didn't really think we'll come so far.”
True indeed because from being termed as underdogs in the tournament team India has risen like a phoenix from the ashes and deserves applause.
Though team India’s impressive winning streak in World Cup 2015 came to an abrupt end breaking the hearts of billions of cricket buffs across the globe but what must be applauded is that the men in blue gave a tough battle to Australia, the team that boosts having been a three-time World Cup Champion ((1999, 2003 and 2007). It may be noted that Australia has the distinction og having played in the most final matches (six out of ten: 1975, 1987, 1996, 1999, 2003, 2007).
In nutshell, I will conclude it’s an honorable ‘Ghar Wapsi’ for Team India!
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