Ravi Shastri wrong, Harsha Bhogle right!

 Australia walked away today with the ICC World Cup today.

Before the semifinals of the tournament, Harsha Bhogle, India’s No. 1 cricket commentator, made a statement that he thought India had peaked too early. He was shot down quickly by Ravi Shastri.

Today’s final was exactly as Harsha, )and I), had predicted. 

Rohit, Virat and Rahul, played their roles. but Gil, Iyer, Jadeja and Suryakumar were exactly the disappointment that I knew would occur.

I was happy to see that even in a non-traditional cricketing state in India, Kerala, people had turned out to sit under the trees to watch the final, and this was beautifully covered by Manorama TV.

My grandfather, late K. C. Mammen Mappillai, would have been proud that when he translated the very first article I ever wrote, when I was just 9 years old (71 years ago), which he translated to Malayalam and had it published in the newspaper, has now resulted in Sanju Samson hitting the high spot in Indian Men’s Cricket, closely followed by Minnu Mani, in the Ladies game. 

Minnu Mani

Minnu is the first Kerala lady player to play for India  and was the leading wicket taker in the series against Bangladesh.

Coming back to World Cup final, the brave decision to choose to field after winning the toss was credit to Pat Cummins. 

Gil never got going. This was a clear sign  of what lay ahead. Rohit and Virat played their roles well, but Rohit as captain, should have shown some more maturity. 

The absolutely fantastic catch by Travis Head showed that the Australians were not going to roll over. 

The Australians were throwing themselves everywhere, reducing 4s to 2s and ones. 

Fielding was exceptional and as I have said earlier, it is the fielding that wins games.

With Rohit going, closely followed by Iyer, it was becoming clear that India was not going to reach the par score of 300. 

Thi brilliant catch by Travis Hesd to send off Rohit showed the mood of the Australians. They were playing TO WIN.

The procession that followed with the absolutely outstanding team work of the Australians. meant that the Indians could not put a foot in the door.

Restricting the Indians to just 240 meant the Australians did not have a dagger over their heads and they could go about their work with a precision that they are renowned for. 

No heroics were necessary and the confidence shown by Travis Head in his batting, which earned him the Player of the Match Award, was an example of cool composure.

I am sad that India lost, but I concur fully with Harsha Bhogle who said that the Indian side had not been exposed fully and, therefore, they were unprepared for a reversal of fortunes in any game.

I do not blame the Indian bowlers, as the pitch turned in character at the innings break. Even if they could bowl at their best, they were in the sights of clever Australian batting which had sufficient depth not to be rattled by a couple of reversals, exactly the opposite to the under-exposed Indian side.

In my humble opinion, Ravichandran Ashwin, who is one of the most well-read players in Indian history, should have been in this side. Not only would he have been an asset in the batting, he would have read the pitch and adjusted his bowling better than any of his colleagues

You may have on paper the best side in the world! However, knowledge was what was lacking in today's performance by India.

Sports on TV this last weekend

Now that the leaves are fallen and the satellite antenna is providing us with some 200 channels, I am able to watch many sports channels, which is not possible on Finnish channels unless you pay to watch the sports, live. (I dislike watching recorded sports, especially if I already know the result.)

This last weekend was full of "sport" with many unusual results. Here are some personal observations about what I witnessed.

First the Madrid ATP Tennis Championship, where I saw the unranked David Nalbandian of Argentina first whip the No. 2 seed Rafael Nadal of Spain on Friday, Serbian Novak Djokovic in the semifinal on Saturday, and this afternoon he showed phenomenal form to beat the World No. 1 Roger Federer of Switzerland. David Nalbandian became third man to beat world's three top players en route to a title.

I can understand Nalbandian beating Rafael Nadal, as Nadal had a tough match against Andy Murray of England. I could see that this unbelievably fit human being, nadal, was tiring, but his quality tennis pulled him through against Murray.

Against Nalbandian, Nadal was overpowered by this stronger fitter individual as the signs of the strain of the week showed through. Nalbandian then beat Djokovic in the semifinal.

But the win against Federer, who is such a superb tennis player, probably the greatest I have seen in my lifetime, was quite difficult to understand. It seemed to me that Federer was giving up in the second set.

Then to Cricket, where India beat Australia in the Twenty20 match on Saturday. Although I was not able to see the match live, using CricInfo text commentary and YouTube rapid uploads by some dedicated cricket lovers, I was able to see this exciting win by India, almost live.

Then there was the World Rugby Union Championships. First Argentina whipped France for the third place. Yesterday, I watch South Africa beat England without a single try being scored in this game.

I have watched a lot of Rugby in my life. I always have thought it was a rough sport. But when I watched this final on tv, the realisation was this was probably the most violent of all field sports dawned on me. There were bleeding faces, cut eyes, dislocated shoulders and almost every minute of the 80 minutes was brutal. The tv conveyed this brutality right into the living room. I was in the centre of all this violence. I really wondered how these grown men could subject themselves and others to this degree of sheer physical torture.

It was interesting to see that when a player was ordered off the field by the referee, with blood streaming from both his eyes, he was back on the field at the first opportunity to take further part in this gladiatorial sport.

And finally, I watched the Formula 1 Championship which was held at Interlagos, Brazil. There were 3 people with a chance of winning the World Championship, and the one with the least chance was the Finn, Kimi Raikkonen, known as the "Ice Man" as he hardly displays any emotion on his face or in his voice, driving the Ferrari.

But win the Brazil race he did, and with  Fernando Alonso of McLaren in 3rd place and Lewis Hamilton, also of McLaren, in 7th place, the World Championship went to Kimi, with Alonso and Hamilton getting joint second place, each with 109 points against Kimi's 110.

Almost every tv in Finland was probably tuned to seeing this race. As Finland celebrates this victory, my weekend of sports viewing taught me much!

The finesse of great tennis, the fantastic action of Twenty20 Cricket, the endurance and skill of great driving of Formula 1 cars and the intolerable physical violence of Rugby.

I did watch some football and handball over the weekend, but give me Twenty20 cricket and tennis as the two best sports to watch to pass the time away as we grow older.

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