Carlton Tri-Series Cricket: India Beaten Out, England-Australia Final On Sunday!

England have entered the final of Carlton Mid Triangular Cricket Series played in Australia beating a listless India by 3 wickets with 19 balls to spare in the 4^th ODI of the Series in Perth today. England now face unbeaten Australia in the Final to be played in same city on Sunday, the 1^st of February 2015. For a change a better performance by Indian opener Shikhar Dhawan (38) and a half century by Ajinkya Rahane (73) gave India a good start and with Virat Kohli coming at No.3 for the first time in this Series India looked to be in a sound position to push for a formidable total. But, the ‘Calypso’ collapses that seem to have become a part of Team India reduced the team to 136 for 5 from 102 for 1 and then 165 for 9. Mohammed Shami, the last man standing, hit a lusty 25 to make India reach 200 at least; else India would have done exactly the same as they did last time against England. This is despite the presence of two confirmed all-rounders in the team. The famed batting line-up of India could not even utilize full 50 overs. For England all their pace bowlers shared the wickets with Finn capturing 3 scalps.

The total of 200 was never going to be enough. However, a 3-wicket burst by Stuart Binny put England under a lot of pressure at 66 for the loss of 5 wickets. But well known for their inability to apply and go for the kill India let the situation slip out of control and the way Taylor (82) and Butler (67) played it seemed there was never any pressure. The two match-winners finally got out, but then it was too late. England have emerged the deserved winners and they were the only second team that looked to stop the Australians.

The Scorecard:

India have finished the tournament winless and before that they have lost the Test Series against Australia. If you talk of the run-up to the ICC World Cup 2015 which will played in Australia and New Zealand India have prepared disastrously with hardly any positive coming out for the team. The Srinivasan factor is also looming large over the scenario and the ‘dirt’ of Indian cricket needs to be finally thrown out. While Srinivasan reportedly wants to exercise the option of giving up IPL franchise CSK so that he could still fight the BCCI elections for President the ICC has so far done nothing to him and in fact announced that the next ICC World Cup T20 would be hosted by India in 2016. How Team India recoups and regroups from here only time would tell. And, time is really running out.

Comments

The VIP Brat: A Study in Contrast!

Here we’re talking about only two compartments inside a particular AC 2-Tier coach in a particular daily train under the Indian Railways that departs a particular originating station at around noontime and reaches the destination city early morning the next day. The train is popular because it is superfast and always on time. That fateful noon too, the train was ready for boarding about one hour before departure. We cut to the inside of that particular coach having those two compartments for our contrasting study. Two elderly couples were in a state of considerable distress. One of them, both technically senior citizens, had been allotted two upper berths and the husband was at his wits end how to proceed, because his wife was being taken for check-up after surgeries in both of her knees—she could hardly walk and her climbing up the berth was a sheer impossibility. The husband was also on the wrong side of the sixties, but he thought he could manage the climbing once he managed a ...

Mitali: The Trauma of Losing a Sibling

Maybe I lied to her when I used to reassure her that she was going to be alright and was going to resume her life in some measure of normalcy in the future years; maybe all my gestures/expressions were false when I used to run my fingers across her forehead or embrace her on occasions when she was able to move around a bit; and maybe all my exhibitions of love care and responsibility were exposed as superficial when I failed to turn up in Delhi where she along with my mother were treated during September-October, 2022 (my mother Urmila Chakravarty was also diagnosed with dental cancer the same month the same year as she was) and when all the members of my parental family and the in-laws converged. Since that fateful day in August, 2022 when she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer to that disastrous day of March 6, 2025—the day my younger blood sister Mitali (Mainu) Chakravarty Sarma (November 2, 1963—March 6, 2025) passed away in the wee hours in a hospital in Guwahati after giving a bra...

Release of Book 'Randomized: A Dozen Short Stories'!

The fourth collection of stories titled 'Randomized: A Dozen Short Stories' by Chinmay Chakravarty has been released on Amazon KDP just now! This collection, short stories in a lighter vein plus with mild satire like the previous collections, has been published in both the E-book and Paperback formats. The links are given below: International: Click Here ! India: Click Here ! Other collections of short stories by the same author: The Cheerless Chauffeur and Other Tales(2021)--Notion Press. Funny and Fishy Tales(2022)--KDP. The Weirdos(2022)--Ukiyoto Publishing. All books of the author are available on Goodreads, apart from Amazon and other outlets! Have a look!