Ind V/s Zim

India lost the services of Tendulkar becoz of his Father's sad demise, Our Condolences!

Azhar's lucky moustache was still lucky as he won the toss and this time he thought he might win if he fielded first( we all know what happened the last time). However, his moustache seemed to run out of luck as seems always in match time.

Ajit Agarkar was in a generous mood, maybe because of his buddy's absence(he knew Sachin wouldn't be there to throw his wicket away so he might as well give them the extra runs). Srinath got an early breakthrough. Agarkar surprised everybody by getting a wicket that to bowled! Then he began to see extra as he thought the stumps were expanding 6 feet wider on either side and that the bowling crease was six inches ahead! For a while he thought to surprise the batsmen by banging the ball in short and getting it to keep low to bowl the batsmen. However these are not Indian pitches. Andy Flower seemed to have learnt from Jimmy Paddams becoz he stuck his front foot out and decided he was too bored with cricket so he might try a little Football( with his bat even!). Not too surprisingly they made 252 in 56 overs (Six overs thanx to the extras which were 51)

India needed to score the runs in 46 overs. Ganguly seemed to be trying to cover up Sachins absence as he was determined to give a catch to remember his pal! Dravid was unlucky. Azhar decided that he was going to late cut a short rising ball six feet outside off stump, maybe he thought there was a hole in the fielder's hand! I personally think he should be playibg a different kind of game with some defenitely different kind of people (the Masters I think). Ramesh decided to get out stumped or caught in the deep. Jadeja told him to stop but it seemed that he couldn't hear him over the noise of the crowd. Just the previous ball he had tried to swing over legside and the ball had gone over cover ("A la Brian Lara"). Jadeja wass given out lbw as the umpire seemed to have finally caught on with Agarkar sight down 6 inches on the leg side. Robin Singh batted well. What about Mongia, his avg is increasing daily as is his strike rate. Srinath surprised one and all with some flat and hard sixes. Prasad was unlucky to face Olonga who wanted to write history especially since Tendulkar wasn't aroud to thokao him. Maybe he should become a History teacher.

Bloody Phool No. 2 Grant Flower was man of the match for his inspirational negative bowling and his tentative batting.

The highlight of the game was the war of the extras with Zimbabwe in almost as generous a mood as the Indians were. The total extras in the game was 90 just short of the record.