It was a match which most thought would be well fought but the result would most likely be in the favor of England. With Indian skipper hinting at trying out the whole squad, many more joined the thought. Coming into the game, India had to fine tune a lot of areas, their bowling, the death overs in particular, fielding and to some extent, the batting as well given the tentativeness of their openers. England, on the other hand, looked a thoroughly professional unit during their last outing and so had no major worries or at least they might have thought so!
In his bid to try out the entire squad before the Super 8 matches, Dhoni took a brave call by resting Sehwag, Ashwin and Zaheer. The replacements being Harbhajan Singh, making his most awaited comeback, the leggy Piyush Chawla and a talented Ashoke Dinda. With Sehwag resting, Irfan Pathan found himself at the top opening the batting but could not contribute much. The good news came in Gautam Gambhir who finally found some form. The ever dependable Virat Kohli played a fine knock once again and Rohit Sharma played another good inning that helped India post a challenging 170 on the board.
The Englishmen though, took it too seriously and tried to play too many shots from the word go. Irfan made most of this intent as he picked 2 early wickets. It was the Spin time as Dhoni opted for Chawla and Bhajji making it spin from both ends and England batsmen had no clue where the ball was going! Bhajji got a wicket of his second ball when a top spinner cleared Morgan's middle stump and the rest is history. He went on to record the best bowling figures by an Indian in T20 Internationals. Chawla too had a pleasant outing with 2 wickets for just 13 runs in his 4 overs and it meant England were bowled out for 80, their lowest total in T20 Internationals.
Dhoni has a Happy Headache going into the Super 8s. Bhajji has announced his return like a Champ that he is and Ashwin and Sehwag are too good to be ignored and so is Zaheer. We will have to wait and see what team Dhoni fields against the Aussies in their first Super 8 match, but its not going to be an easy decision! For now, he can be happy about the pitches in Colombo that are helping spin and that India are to play all their fixtures on the same venue if they make it, will widen his smile a lot more!
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