It was a thriller because one man (MS Dhoni) decided to take the equation down from 18 off 9 balls to 17 off 6 all by himself. Confidence in himself has been always a great factor in such situations but MSD failed yesterday - by three runs!
The graph below shows where the match turned - in a chase that was finally orchestrated by Virat Kohli (it helped that his nemesis Anderson was missing this game), the Indian innings were on track by over 15. The R-B line met the ideal scenario - just then, Kohli fell, followed by Raina...and then Jadeja. All this while Dhoni was warming up.
The graph below shows where the match turned - in a chase that was finally orchestrated by Virat Kohli (it helped that his nemesis Anderson was missing this game), the Indian innings were on track by over 15. The R-B line met the ideal scenario - just then, Kohli fell, followed by Raina...and then Jadeja. All this while Dhoni was warming up.
17 was scored off the first over of England innings - before the final over began, India needed that many runs to win! The Indian death-bowling once again leaked runs so much that it was a flood at the end. Full-tosses were handed out as though it was Christmas - Mohit Sharma's persistence with slower balls were exposed badly. What it meant was a target that was 61 runs more than the number of balls available to play!
What next for India? The Champions League starts soon and T20 mayhem will be all over the country. It makes sense for India to start planning for the next T20 World Cup with Virat Kohli as the captain (and Raina as the deputy). India need to bring back the spirit with which they played the inaugural T20 World Cup where a number of T20 specialists were selected.
Along tour comes to an end where India won the ODIs 3-1 while losing the test series by same margin and the lone T20. One hopes the next tour will be a progressive step forward - let us wait and watch!
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