Caught Dhoni bowled Nehra

Well though the result of yesterday's match between Afghanistan and India didn't have any takers, the match was fun to see the opening batsman of Afghanistan scoring a half century. However, batsmen who followed didn't have anything to say with their bat going completely dumb. That was Noor Ali Zadran for you who scored 50 runs from 48 balls to see Afghanistan score a total in excess of hundred.

There was nothing to feel surprised about Afghanistan ending their batting with 115 on the board and one has to applaud them for playing their complete quota of 20 overs which most of the lesser known teams don't. If not for the 50 scored by Noor Ali Zadran, the next major score came from the number 5 batsman in Asghar Stanikzai who scored 30 runs together which constituted about 70% of the total of Afghanistan. Going through the scorecard of the match would reveal nothing but only a series of single digit scores if not for those two mentioned above.

It is really tough to write something about such games whose results are well known to one and all even before the match has been started announced. But, once in a while there would be surprises and a little bit of decent performances from batsmen from these teams as well. It was evident from this match regarding the wonderful pair Dhoni and Ashish Nehra make when Dhoni had three consecutive catches off the bowling off Nehra. This was the game where a captain can try experimenting with his players and Dhoni executed this very well by handing the ball to Yuvraj Singh and Yousuf Pathan.

Murali Vijay's knock at the top of the order speaks about Dhoni's use of such games as a platform to bring in new faces on the international arena. With the total being only 115, Dhoni experimenting new talent should be praiseworthy. I wish Ravindra Jadeja should have come in at number 3 instead of Yuvraj, when Yuvraj has a lot to prove in the matches to come. India would be facing South Africa shortly in the next few days by which time players like Ravindra Jadeja, Murali Vijay and Praveen Kumar should be ready to take some evasive actions with the bat in case their team needs it.