India cruise ahead at Mirpur

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With a clinical performance by the bowlers, India took a start to regain the series 2-0 against Bangladesh. As has been the recent trend, the tailenders ensured that the Bangladesh total resembled something decent - Mahmudullah came very close to scoring his maiden century but India bowled out the opposition to leave him stranded.

Ishant Sharma has done well in the last 2 innings and that is real good news for the Indian think-tank before the SA series. Pragyan Ojha also contributed to the wickets tally - he seems to be a good prospect for the Indians and augurs well for the spin options. Amit Mishra and he will play turns in playing for the national team. Zaheer was his usual stuff in taking wickets at the right time.

5 dismissals for MS Dhoni made it a good outing for him. If only the Indians had dismissed the team for less than 150, it would have been a perfect day.

The start for the Indians was as usual - Sehwag and Gambhir hitting their now-customary half-century stand. The freshness in the pitch has gone and the pitch seems to be good for picking. I expect both the openers to bat once and big to leave the Bangla team behind.

The next 1 and half days will be a tough proposition for the Bangla team, who do not seem to understand the nuances of test cricket. They are barely able to face the 2nd new ball on pitches that are good for batting - how do you expect them to win matches then? The bowling, as everyone knows, revolves around Sakib - no 20 wickets there, as Sehwag had mentioned few days back. The batsmen do not have the patience to play out good balls and target the bad ones - they still seem to be in the ODI mode and start playing shots as soon as they get to the crease. Ashraful's dismissal was representative of this fact. Unless they have a domestic structure which encourages players to play longer, their results will continue to mirror this.

Also in the news was an article saying that Sri Lanka will host India again this year !!! What is wrong with the BCCI and the Sri Lanka board? Are they so hand-in-glove that they want to keep playing against each other and reap the benefits of the TV revenues? God only knows.

The defending Under-19 Champions India have crashed out of the World Cup thanks to their defeat by the arch-rivals Pakistan. The final four teams are - Pakistan, West Indies, Australia and Sri Lanka. Something is being done right in the under-age teams of Pakistan and West Indies - hopefully they will revive the cricket of the seniors and make cricket interesting once again.

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