Brilliant effort from the Indian youth brigade helped them clinch the Champions Trophy 2013. If it was Virat Kohli, Ravindra Jadeja and Shikhar Dhawan who did magnificent jobs with the bat, brilliant bowling by Jadeja and Ravi Ashwin allowed India to make an impressive comeback in the exciting final.
Here we bring to you the hits and flops from finals of the ICC Champions Trophy 2013.
HITS
Virat Kohli: Kohli batted beautifully in tough situation and ensured that India were in a respectable position at the end of the innings. In his short innings of 43 runs, he displayed brilliant temperament as he kept the price on his wicket and tried to bat till the very end of the Indian innings.
Eoin Morgan: Morgan was the cornerstone of England batting after they lost early wickets in quick succession. He scored 33 runs off 30 balls before he got out to Ishant Sharma who wasn’t up to the mark prior to that over. His dismissal brought a sudden panic in England’s innings, which took away the match from the hosts.
Ravindra Jadeja: Jadeja gave another outstanding performance as he first smashed 33 runs and later got a couple of wickets in a crisis situation. He ended up being the leading wicket-taker of the tournament because of his ability to sneak through the defence of the batsmen at crucial times which setup the road for the Indian victory.
Ravi Bopara: Bopara was the silver lining in the average performance from the English team. He first picked up three wickets as he sent back the heavyweights in Raina and Dhoni to the pavilion and later he played a cameo of 30 runs which gave his side a hope to win this contest. His brilliant all-round performance did earn him lot of praises, but still it wasn’t good enough for his side to win the match.
Ravi Ashwin: Ashwin, who was the unsung hero till the league games, turned out to be the best bet for Dhoni. He gave away just 15 runs off his four overs and bagged the wickets of Trott and Root in his successive overs.
Ishant Sharma: Sharma, who was quite expensive till his final over, turned the game in India's favour. He picked up the wickets of Bopara and Eoin Morgan on successive balls, which brought back India into this match.
FLOPS
Suresh Raina: Raina scored just one run off the six balls that he played. He was trying to smack the ball through mid-wicket but failed to read the pace of the ball and was undone by Bopara. His fielding was brilliant but by not spending time in the middle didn’t allow him to free his arms.
MS Dhoni: Dhoni couldn’t do much with the bat but his glove work was just absolutely brilliant. Dhoni got out on duck as he tried to muscle the ball from Bopara but didn’t manage to time it that well.
Alastair Cook: Cook was the victim of some tremendous bowling of Umesh Yadav. He got under pressure of increasing the run-rate and threw his wicket. His early dismissal brought middle-order under some serious pressure which was exploited by Indian spin-twins.
Joe Root: Root got out on a single digit score for the first time in his ODI career. He was undone by Ashwin when he was trying to accelerate the run-rate. He contributed just seven runs with the bat.
Rohit Sharma: Sharma failed to impress for the second consecutive time. He played on the wrong line and Broad managed to disturb his timber. He scored just nine runs off 14 balls that he played.
Tim Bresnan: Bresnan was included for his all-round skills but he hardly contributed to the England's cause. He failed to leave his mark with the ball and was milked for 34 runs in his four overs. In batting, he went for a suicidal run and finally lost his wicket.
By Amit Chopra
Indian Sports News Network
