Perth: India cruised to a comfortable win and have now completed a hat-trick of victories in the ICC Cricket World Cup at the WACA in Perth on Saturday . Mahendra Singh Dhoni-led side crushed minnows UAE by nine wickets with yet another flawless display all departments – batting, bowling and fielding. This is Dhoni’s 58th ODI win as captain for India away from home joint most with Sourav Ganguly as India’s captain in ODIs.
For the first time at this World Cup, an Associate team has played like an Associate team. UAE collapsed in the face of some pretty good bowling in bouncy conditions, and the target of 102 was always going to be a stroll for India. A half-century for Rohit Sharma supported well by Virat Kohli’s 33 sealed the win for the Men in Blue. Ravichandran Ashwin’s superb figures of 4 wickets for 25 runs in his spell of 10 overs was adjudged the Man of the Match.
Here’s how the action unfolded:
UAE skipper Mohammad Tauqir won the toss and made the easy decision to bat first against defending champions India on what looked to be a good batting wicket.
Umesh Yadav struck in his first over with a well-directed short delivery which was too quick for Andri Berenger to hook. Skipper MS Dhoni took a simple catch after moving a few steps to his left.
Bhuvneshwar Kumar started off proceedings for Team India but looked a bit wayward starting off with a wide and giving away six runs in the first over. It looked like Bhuvi has found his form back again. The short delivery worked well for the Indian bowlers and this time Bhuvi made good use of it sending Ajmad Ali back to the dressing room. Ali didn’t trouble the scorers much scoring just the four runs off the 12 balls he faced.
Ravichandran Ashwin once again proved his inclusion in the side to be a useful one. The smart off-break bowler struck first blood in his very first over. Krishna Karate wanted to defend Ashwin’s slow ball but only saw the delivery hit his glove, and Suresh Raina doing the remaining bit of the job catching a simple one at leg-slip.
Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Team India look to be very content with the start the bowlers had given them and the fans were enjoying themselves at the WACA hoping for a flurry of wickets.
In what seemed to be very surprising at the WACA, spin looked to be doing the damage and Ashwin took full advantage of the situation. A brilliant carrom ball coupled with Shikhar Dhawan’s beautiful catch diving to his right was the script to Mumbai-born Swapnil Patil’s story back to the dressing room after scoring a meagre four runs.
