Hungry Indians on right track

I’m also glad that India did not take them lightly in the second semifinal at Kingsmead, the venue that they wanted to shift because of the weather and ground conditions during a day-night match. Perhaps their fears might have come true if rain had interrupted the game at the wrong time and the Duckworth and Lewis method had to be used.

Thank God it was not to be, and now, finally, it is going to be the battle we were all waiting for, between India and Australia.

It was really heartening to see India scoring 270 runs — an impossible task for the inexperienced Kenyan batsmen in such a pressure-cooker situation. I was also happy to see the captain getting a spectacular century, to equal Mark Waugh’s World Cup record. Sachin, of course, got his usual quota of runs, though missing out on a century for the fourth time in this tournament would have hurt him.

The Indian pace trio, as was to be expected, ripped the top order of the Kenyan batting. Like the first semifinal, this was also a tame affair. But it did reveal the tremendous resolve displayed by the Indians to be in preparedness for the final. They avoided the temptation to experiment against a weak side. They played with the same combination, keeping the batting line-up unaltered and also sticking to their gameplan meticulously.

And most significantly, they continue to look damn hungry for success. This really augurs well for the ensuing battle against Australia on Sunday.

It is bound to be more interesting and nerve-wracking than the one-sided war between Iraq and the Americans on at the other side of the globe for sure!