A minute of silence (for our bowlers and fielders)

This was just one match, our first in fact, so perhaps we will have better luck in the next one. But, we were brought down to earth in a big way in this one. After the high of the inaugural, this one ended in a disappointment that was never entirely unexpected. Shakib when he said he wanted to restrict them to 260 or thereabouts it was more than just wishful thinking. He knew if the impossible happened and India were restricted to what they wanted they could overhaul it, perhaps with some trouble but it would have been a realistic target.

Kohli sealed his place in the side for sure with his ton (and just in time too, it was the penultimate delivery of the innings) at the expense of Raina but it was the mercurial Virender Sehwag whose innings of 175 in 140 ball with 14 fours and 5 sixes really sealed the victory for India. Whether I end up on the losing side I am an unabashed fan of Viru. His approach is simplicity itself: hit the ball hard, sometimes very, very hard. Good ball, bad ball, mad ball, sad ball, he'll hit them all. It is because he is like that bowlers think they have a chance against him. They do, after he has flattened them and then perhaps a sense of pity or absentmindedness comes upon him and he gets out. I called a friend and mentioned that a first runout always spells doom and we got Sachin cheaply. He replied that yes but now has begun the Sehwag boom boom. After sometime, I told him maybe we needed an anti-tank gun to stop this guy. My friend said yeah or 20 fielders. That's the effect he has on the opposite captain who may want to count his players every now and then to check if three or four are missing gone to the loo or something while this guy is hitting us with bombs.

When they scored 370, India knew they had the luxury of another 'practice' session and the early fireworks by Kayes (it was chaos for them then—even unintended shots were winners) may have amused them a bit but they are old hands and knew few teams in the world would get to it.

Everyone praised our spirited reply. They would. They are generous with losers, specially if you are the host. How fatigued were our players when they went out to bat? In all fairness, our premier batsmen (Tamim and Shakib) did have a go going past 50, but really our batsmen were not prepared to climb Everest! They had a good outing after their bowlers had a good hiding.

We can speculate all we want whether batting would have been a better option. Detractors crib and say these guys have been overstuffed with stuff like the 'dew-factor' and all that and there are other factors to be taken into consideration as well like what is your strength and what is theirs and so on. Some think most fans will be realistic about the fortunes of our team after this result, especially the way it was brought about.

We finally did get to 283, which proves that our captain was right. All he needed was mass suicide by the Indian batsmen. What could he do when they declined to oblige?

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Ishrat Firdausi is a journalist, writer and a cricket enthusiast.