World Champions!

By now everybody knows the series of events.
India made 157/5.
Pakistan started the chase badly..and it looked like India were all set.
But then Misbah started doing his thing, and brought Pakistan so agonizingly close to the trophy.
But then he got ambitious, and that cheeky shot doubled the heartbeats of a billion (give or take a few) people around the world.

(Misbah down repenting that rash shot. Check out the umpire looking at him. The Indians too busy celebrating)

India are the winners of the cricket twenty20 world cup!

A major championship win after a long long time – in fact, the first one that we at americandesi have witnessed! Rare day for Indian cricket..and hopefully the harbinger of a new beginning for India. A country that went into mourning not too many months back following the ODI world cup debacle is rooting for those 11 odd heroes again.

Filed under: Cricket, India, Videos , , Chak De India, India, Twenty20 World Cup, World Cup Champion

India vs Pakistan It Is

India through to the finals of the inaugural Twenty20 cricket world cup, being held in South Africa.

Yuvraj Singh once again blasting the aussie bowlers out of the park, was instrumental in the win.

View a video of the highlights here

Some of the aspects that stuck out to us:

1. Given the number of Indian flags fluttering in the ground, you would have thought this was happening in Mohali (Chandigarh).

2. Gilchrist in the post match chat with Ravi Shastri, sounded funny to us. He sounded like a sheepish student complaining about not being the school topper because he did not sleep well the night before the exam. What’s so bad about accepting that you lost to a better team? Are Indians the only humble people around?

Sample the excuses “We came off a break, while India had been playing a lot recently”. “We were in control but played a few bad shots because of which we lost“. And oh yes…”The indians were also good”. Damn well, they were…and the rare occasion that they were, you better give them credit.

3. Yuvraj hit 5 sixes – one of them apparently 119m. Now thats a long long distance we think. And boy, was he charged up…

4. Post match, there were some happy scenes around the Indian dressing room. Zaheer khan throwing a bucket of water from the second level onto an unsuspecting Yuvi coming in reminded us of holi pranks back in the days!

5. The cynics that we are, we cant help thinking of a conspiracy angle to the way things have turned out. India and Pakistan, both teams with the biggest cricket support base in the world, both humiliated horribly in the ODI world cup, itching to redeem themselves, then that very unconvincing bowlout episode in their earlier meeting here, now face off in the final.
Its a world cup, their cricket rivalry is legendary, and this is possibly the most exciting pair for the final of a world cup. It all seems like somebody wrote a comeback script for them.
Anyways…we are not complaining. We enjoyed the fireworks. And the final should be very interesting.

So who’s it going to be ? Stay tuned. The final is on monday. 1600GMT (12PM EST)

Filed under: Cricket, India , , India, Twenty20 World Cup, Yuvraj

Top Ten Weird Dismissals in Cricket

Found this nice collection of funny dismissals….good stuff ! Watch out for Inzamam.

Filed under: Cricket, Masti, Videos , Inzamam, Weird Cricket Dismissals

Yuvraj Gets It On…And How!

A piece of History..Yuvraj hitting Stuart Broad for 6 sixes in an over.
Fastest 50 ever..12 balls. Payback in style by Yuvi !!

Cricket does not get much better than this.

Watch out for Shastri going ‘Yesssssss‘ after number 5.

Filed under: Cricket, India, Videos , Sixes, Twenty20 World Cup, Yuvraj