Sachin played yet another magnificent innings…

I started playing Cricket when I was in class 7th or 8th and at the same point of time I started watching Cricket on Television. Since then I have been watching cricket regularly. In that period, Team India have won a lot of matches as well as they lost as many. But my most memorable one-day match is between India and Australia, which was played on 5th of Nov 2009 at Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium, Hyderabad. The Australians were at their best and thrashed all the Indian bowlers to score put 350

We were praying for a miracle. Fortunately Team India started their innings extremely well but soon Shewag got out on 38 runs. It was a big jolt for team India. Sachin Tendulkar was at the crease but on the other hand the Australian team was taking Indian wickets at regular intervals. Gautam Gambhir, Yuvraj Singh and even M.S.Dhoni failed to give a fight. My hopes of victory were getting bleaker.

However, “God of cricket - Sachin Tendulker” was at his element best. After losing 5 quick wickets, I thought we were going to lose by a huge margin but Suresh Raina and Sachin really fought well and entertained the fans. The outstanding innings (175) of Sachin gave us a ray of hope. But Sachin got out at a very crucial stage of the innings when India needed 19 runs of 18 balls. The crowd went on to total silence when Ravindra Jadeja got out in that over.

At that point, all our hopes were dependent on lower order. But lower order also failed to perform well and with two deliveries remaining, team India were all down. We lost a wonderful match by only 3 runs.

Amar Kumar
Sports Journalist