Gates not yet closed for India

It is confusing as to how come it happens only against India that a batsman can hit sixes at will. In their last game against Australia as well, there were 13 sixes scored by Shane Watson and David Warner between them. That was not the case for Australia against either Pakistan or Bangladesh. Yesterday, even against the West Indies, Chris Gayle had 6 hits out of the ground. Had it not been for Gayle, West Indies would not have won or even come close to winning the match. On can go through the scorecard to see no other score other than Gayle's being a highlight.

The series of scores from West Indies were 23 from Chandrapaul, 19 from Darren Sammy and 17 from Pollard. If Gayle's knock is removed from the list, the total would drop down to 71 from 9 overs at a rate of close to 8.00 runs an over. One thing that made the difference between the two teams was the way both the captains handled their bowlers. The Indian captain used only 6 bowlers with four of them bowling their complete quota with the remaining two bowling half of that. Of course, one had to Ashish Nehra 4 overs when he took three wickets.

On the other hand, the West Indian captain bought in 7 of his bowlers to bowl with every change accompanying a reduction in run rate and an increase in the run rate required to secure a win. One fascinating aspect was that every bowler from the West Indies had a wicket against his name. There was almost every Indian batsman who contributed with the bat but that was simply just not enough. Except Murali Vijay and Rohith Sharma, there were similar scores until Harbhajan Singh. Putting it simple, the Indian innings saw more of their batsmen making it to the crease with limited bowlers taking the ball.

Whatever, though India have lost both their games in the super eights, they still have a freak chance to make it to the semi-finals of the world cup with a match yet to go against Sri Lanka. In case India manage to win against Sri Lanka and both West Indies and Sri Lanka lose to Australia (which has a greater probability) then India's run-rate might be the qualifying factor to enter the semis. But, as mentioned, that would be a tough fight for India with both Sri Lanka and West Indies also being in the same phase that India are in.