India on a roll!!!

The Indian cricket team is on a roll these days. They have just registered their 9th consecutive win in ODIs, an Indian record. What was more heartening to see was the margins of these victories. All of these wins were comprehensive and convincing wins. Dhoni is fast building the reputation of being a cool customer and a very shrewd captain. Above all this, he is a very lucky captain! With luck and a very talented bunch of youngsters by his side, he is going to take the Indian Cricket to scale new heights. This winning run started with the ODI series in India against England. It was expected to be a very tight series but the Indians were expected to pip the English team 4-3 in that series. However, the Indians ambushed the English and were on course for a 7-0 sweep when unfortunately, the Mumbai attacks cut short the tour. This followed with the Indian Govt banning the team from travelling to Pakistan and rightly, the BCCI calling off the tour. Then BCCI smartly arranged for a ODI tour to Sri Lanka in the interim. Another 5 match ODI series began late January and was expected to be a closely fought series what with India having won only twice in past any bilateral series in Sri Lanka and Sri Lanka fresh from their away series win against Pakistan. India won the 1st match comfortably by restricting the Lankan to a low total and chasing it down comfortably. Aided by some luck with the toss in the remaining games, the Indians chose to bat first and thereby posting high totals and batted the Lankans out of the game each and every time. It is very heartening to see the young Indian team diving around in the field and improved performance on the running between the wicket. Dhoni has managed to do what only Ganguly has managed to do in the past i.e. getting the team to believe in themselves and play very positively. Dhoni's record as a captain is very impressive in all forms of cricket with more than 62% of the matches being won on an average. This only proves the fact that he has the acumen of being a shrewd captain and an intellectual thinker. This along with the fact that Australia as now lost 5 ODIs in a row, means that India replace Australia as the No. 2 team in the world. If it makes a clean sweep of the this series like against England, it would be on the top of the world with South Africa as company. It is a very interesting phase for the Indian Cricket and hopefully it would continue to bring a lot of cheers to the Indians who only fall short of falling in the feet of these demi-gods!