MS Dhoni: Champion of Champions!!

 What a day it was yesterday! Final between India and England for the Champions Trophy. India the favorites, showing tremendous form and remaining unbeaten in the tournament. England having the home advantage, with familiar home conditions and quality bowling attack. India's batting on the other hand was clicking superbly, however the middle order was not tested yet.

 To make things more interesting, the rain God's decided to make their presence felt. It rained frequently and there was no reserve day to make things worst. Finally in the evening, the umpires decided to have a 20 over match. England had already won the toss, and decided to field, sighting the wet conditions, an early advantage for the Poms.

 India went into bat, but had 3 breaks due to rain. Well, it does affect the concentration of the batsmen, who has to come on and off the field and start all over again. To make it more challenging, it was a shortened game and there was no time to settle in again and again. Due to all this, some batsmen perished in the cause of making quick runs, before getting settled.Finally, India managed 129, thanks to good knocks by Virat Kohli and Sir Ravindra Jadeja.

 England play a very different side in T20, then what they play in a 50 over game. Without their specialists players, they were found wanting at 46 for 4. A big and potentially match winning partnership between Morgan and Bopara, saw them in good position to make it home. Then , Ishant Sharma bowled an over where he gave away a six and 2 wides, well he did get both the settled batsmen out too, in the same over.

 Finally, England tumbled after those 2. Last 2 overs were bowled by spinners. A master move from Dhoni, which payed off. 15 required off the last over, 6 off the last ball. It could have gone either way with Tredwell on strike, he went for the big six, missed it and Dhoni, Team India and more than a billion people were ecstatic, Dhoni had delivered once again for India!

 MS Dhoni, he has one each and every trophy. T20 world cup, ODI World Cup, Test Championship, One Day Championship, IPL, Champions League and now the Champions Trophy. Dhoni, is a wonderful guy with great temperament. Always lets his team celebrate and goes away from limelight, and always takes the blame if the team is not doing well...what a wonderful captain indeed.

 Comparisons with Ganguly will always be there, is he better than Ganguly, well I would say,better by leaps and bounds. I am a fan of Ganguly too, but Dhoni has got all the results and trophies for India. One might say, Ganguly had laid the foundation for the 2011 World cup, but Dhoni has done a lot more after that!

A Tribute to Sourav Ganguly.

 Sourav Ganguly is one of the top cricketers of our time and an unsung hero of sorts too! He is among many others like Rahul Dravid, Anil Kumble and Yuvraj Singh to name a few, who have happily served the country under the shadow of The God, Sachin Tendulkar. Ganguly may not have a heap of records under his belt, but his aggressive nature and his support for bringing in youngsters of the likes of Dhoni and Yuvraj to the team has worked wonders for India.

 India won the recently concluded cricket world cup. Whole country in deep gratitude for Yuvraj's performance, Dhoni's captaincy and dedicating the cup victory to Sachin Tendulkar. No mention of Ganguly anywhere, he is indeed the forgotten hero of Indian cricket. 

 India was the number one test team in 2010. Now India is also closing the gap on Australia to be the numero-uno team in ODIs too. Australia as expected did not even manage to reach the world cup finals this time around. A team without great match winners lie Gilchrist, Warne, McGrath, Steve Waugh and Hayden looks a lot different now. The next generation is no match to them. However there are still some good players including Punter, Mike Hussey and Puppy Clarke. 

 Coming back to Ganguly. How can anyone forget the Natwest series win in England. Final match of the 7 match series and Ganguly removing his shirt and waving it in commemoration. Also it was under Ganguly's captaincy that India started winning test matches abroad, including places like Australia and on pitches like Perth. I remember that test series down under. Ganguly himself scored a ton in the first test to secure a draw. Dravid was in the form of his life, India did very well in that series. 

 Not only his captainy, his batting is sublime and there is no questioning that fact. In his prime, he was considered God in West Bengal and is still known as dada by all his fans and lovers. He is a player who has one of the best timings in the cricket world, may be even better than Sachin. He has hit many many towering sixes. The moment of him.... coming down the track to spinners and hitting those biggies will never be forgotten.Also, Geoff boycott would often say while Ganguly is batting, "On off side, first there is God and than there is Sourav: The Prince of Kolkata. "

 Finally, I would like to summarize some if the key moments of his fantastic career and his remarkable achievements:

• Ganguly made his Test debut against England at Lords and scored a superb 131. However not many people know that he followed up with a 136 in the next test match, his second test.
• Second batsman after Sachin Tendulkar to reach the 10k runs mark in ODIs.
• Ganguly was appointed the Captain of the Indian cricket team in February, 2000.
• Ganguly was the Man of the Series in the New Zealand-India 5 match ODI series in November 1999.   
• Ganguly made a mammoth 183 against Sri Lanka in World Cup 1999, which, at that time, was the Highest ODI Score by an Indian, beating Kapil Dev's Record of 175*.
• Ganguly was the Man of the Series in the Pepsi Cup 1999 (March-April) for scoring 278 runs and taking 6 wickets in total.
• Saurav Ganguly has the distinction of being one of the few players in the World to Score a century and take 4 wickets in the same match. (ODIs)
• Saurav Ganguly along with Tendulkar forms the 4th Best Opening Pair in the History of One-day cricket.
• Saurav Ganguly and Tendulkar were involved in a World Record Opening Partnership of 252.
• Saurav Ganguly was named Sport star Person of the Year 1998. He also won the Arjuna Award in 1998.
• Saurav Ganguly was the Highest Run-Scorer for India in ODIs in 1997.
• In the Sahara Cup 1997, Saurav Ganguly set a new World Record for 5 consecutive Man of the Match Awards. He was also the Man of the Series.

Having played very well for KKR in IPL in intitial seasons, he was not selected by KKR in 2011. Many people ignored IPL for that and there is a FB group on it too. Finally, Pune team got him in. Today is his match against KKR and it is gonna be interesting...watch out KKR fans.