Transcendence

Sachin scored his 5th WC century, overtaking the records of Ganguly, Mark Waugh and Ponting yesterday. Sachin blasted 10 fours and five sixes in a devastating display of batting. Strauss' reply was grand. He scored 158, a brilliant innings and won the Man of the Match Award. Yesterday during the time of the toss, an adverse star Moola was ruling ( adverse for India ). We had warned Dhoni, Sehwag and Sachin about the adversity and advised them to be careful ! Was Imran right ? The Dew Factor. The Make Up or Break Up factor. The bowlers will not be able to bowl with a wet ball and this comes as a huge advantage to the team batting second ! India was well poised to reach more than 350, at 300/3. Then England bowled really well and the last seven wickets fell for a mere 38 runs ! Some weaknesses of both teams stand out. Both teams are formidable in batting and mediocre in bowling. The fielding of both was below par. India will have to improve her rate in the death overs and there is a

What a beginning ! Sehwag slashes the first ball, Swann gets a finger to it and then it flies for four. Next ball gets the top of Sehwag's bat and it flies over the fielder's head. Next ball Sehag chips one and it goes over Anderson's head. Three chances which could have been taken. Anderson swung the ball in the first over and Sehwag was lucky ! The first ball of the next over - Sehwag hits it through the covers for four ! Ajmal Shehzad is the bowler bowling at 83 mph ! He is generating fairly good pace, but is not known as a swing bowler like Anderson. The swing bowlers may get some help, as it was overcast conditions for the last two days. Chawla is playing. India will take advantage of the English weakness against spin on spin tracks ! Swann will of course be dangerous. Yardy also will be dangerous, if the pitch takes spin, but then Indian batsmen play spin well ! We had said in our columns that time before 0250 is adverse. Now India is 33/0. Sehwag looks confident and

Dashing middle order bat, Ravi Bopara, opined that facing India on Sunday is indeed tough. This is one of our toughest challenges in this tournament. We know what the Indian batsman are capable of but we do have our plans to keep them quiet. We will see on Sunday." "If it is a spinning deck, we have got our own spinners who can cause problems. A pitch that spins is going to cause trouble for any team. It is going to cause problems for India as well. A lot is going to depend on the conditions," he added. "Every match is big for us. Even the game the other night was also big for us. But against India in India is going to be huge. "We are not thinking too much about it. If you think too much about it you will get out of the mould. We want to stay relaxed." He said England has definite plans for the Sunday match. "We have plans against each bowler and every batsman but it is how the batsman feel on the day. We generally play aggressive cricket. We know in

India are at the moment ( 0411 PM ), 160/3, in the warm up match against NZ, at Chennai. Sehwag and Sachin were clean bowled and India were 42/2. Then came India's young talent, Kohli. He has just smashed 50 and Gambhir is on 36. Gambhir survived a chance, as Franklin dropped him. Sachin was bowled by a slower ball from Southee and Sehwag was bowled by Oram. Kohli flashed at a wide ball from Oram and was snapped behind the wicket by McCullum. Gambhir is not out on 54 off 63 balls. Run Rate - 4.96. In the other warm up match, England were 142/5 and then finally managed 243, thanks to Prior, who scored 78. Trott scored 57. Canada are now 227/9, needing 17 runs for a win, with one wicket remaining. No, no upset. England won by 16 runs. In the powerplay, India played well and seven fours came off it. But Gambhir was snapped behind off Southee for 89 off 81 balls. India 216-4 ! This is going to be the biggest WC ever, as almost 40 K people turned up at Bangalore and Chennai. Now India