Well deserved victory

The captain of Indian cricket team Mahendra Singh Dhoni has proved his worth by leading it in the Asia Cup to victory. This memorable victory has come after 15 years. Dhoni broke the jinx of being Choker in the final. In most of the competitions, it was seen that even if India played better and better in any tournament in the beginning but it miserably failed to register victory in the final. That jinx has been broken by Dhoni. The chief characteristic in Dhoni is that he leads the team from the front and never show nervousness even if the team were placed in adverse situation. He always inspires his teammates to play to their full potential. Dhoni is the most suitable captain to continue in the World Cup next year. He must not be disturbed and given free hand to prepare the team for the biggest challenge.The World Cup is exactly a year away and India has knocked the door by emerging as the champion of Asia. Under Mohammad Azharuddin’s captaincy, India had won Asia Cup in 1995. They had defeated the Sri Lankan team that year too in the final. With lethal bowling , the Indian pacers led by Ashish Nehra made the match one sided in favour of India. The average score of 267 runs made by India became too heavy for Sri Lanka that they could not gave any challenge to the Indian team at any point of time in the match. One year ahead of Worls Cup, winning Asia Cup reflects the strength of India before the world. Asia Cup victory is itself makes India strong claimant of World Cup. A 15-year-old title drought came to an end as India won the Asia Cup cricket tournament after crushing defending champions Sri Lanka by 81 runs in a lop-sided final. This was India’s first Asia Cup triumph since Mohammad Azharuddin had led them to the title in Sharjah in 1995. On that occasion also, India had beaten Sri Lanka by eight wickets in the final.The Indian seam attack rose to the challenge when it mattered the most, accounting for the scalps of Tillakaratne Dilshan (0), Upul Tharanga (16), Mahela Jayawardene (11), Angelo Mathews (0) and captain Kumar Sangakkara (17) in just 16 overs.Sri Lanka never recovered from those telling blows. Nehra was the most successful Indian bowler with four for 40 while Zaheer Khan and Ravindra Jadeja taking two wickets apiece by conceding 36 and 29 runs respectively. Praveen Kumar chipped in with one wicket.Praveen Kumar struck first blood when he had Dilshan caught at mid-on, an attempted pull from outside off stump ballooning to Harbhajan Singh inside the 30-yard circle.Even as Sri Lanka had recovered from Dilshan’s fall in the first over, Zaheer Khan, bowling with great verve and zing, castled Tharanga. The ball broke back to hit off stump as the left hander shouldered arms.Taking over from Zaheer from the pavilion end, Ashish Nehra struck thrice in seven balls to break the Sri Lankan spine.The major contribution of victory in Asia Cup goes to the Indian bowled, though the batsmen too did well. As generally the bowling department is not the strength of India, bowlers showed in the Asia Cup final that they also have guts to bowl well enough to make the batsmen play very difficult. Still, our bowlers need improvement if they are to play at the world class level in the World Cup. The bowlers by winning Asia Cup must take pledge to win the coming World cup like Kapil Dev did in 1983.