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The desert storm...

If you are a cricket lover from 90's or a Sachin Tendulkar fan, you need no more explanation to this!

Desert storm is now almost unanimous with Sachin's blistering knock against the Aussies exactly 16 years back...

 

The series:

It was the sixth and last league match in the tri-series Coca-Cola cup cricket tournament played between India and Australia. The other team in the series was New Zealand.

Australia had won all their league matches and had already qualified for the final. India and New Zealand had one win each. So it all came down to the final league match... If India wins the match they will qualify for the final... Even if they lose, if they manage to do it so with a specific margin then they can qualify.

 

The match:

Australian skipper Steve Waugh won the toss and elected to bat first.

SachinAustralia were in a situation to bother at 87 for 3, but the ever reliable Mark Waugh and Michael Bevan put on a solid 90 runs partnership to lay the platform for a huge total.
The Aussie team didn't disappoint and they managed to score a mammoth 284 for 7 in their stipulated 50 overs.

250+ score in pre 2000 is almost like 350+ score at present...

So, India need to score atleast 254 to overtake New Zealand on better run rate to reach the final and it all looked very bleak for India...

Indian innings had a sedate start with both Fleming and Kasprowicz bowling on a perfect line. India scraped to 50 runs in their first 10 overs. But Nayan Mongia who was sent up the order as a pinch hitter provided a nice partnership with Sachin to keep the scoreboard ticking.

But after Nayan Mongia was dismissed, India quickly lost the skipper Azharuddin and Jadeja to be tattering at 138 for 4 in 29 overs.

That's when sand storm interrupted and halted the play...

When the match resumed, the target was changed to 276 in 46 overs and to qualify India need to score 237 in 46 overs.

And that's when Sachin decided to take on his mission and start his assault... He played an incredible innings...

Ofcourse there's no need to say that India reached the cut-off score of 237... They made it in 42.4 overs...

Sachin scored 143 runs in 131 balls hitting 9 fours and 5 huge sixes. Nayan Mongia is the next top scorer with 35 runs!

Interestingly, after Sachin got out in the 43rd over, Laxman and Kanitkar scored only 8 runs in the last 3 overs.

Though eventually India lost the match by 26 runs, the match was remembered for Sachin's magnificent innings and his clean hits...

It should be noted that in the next couple of days, again the same teams met in the final and again Sachin scored a century (134 runs) and helped India chase Australia's 272 runs to win the cup...

So eventually Australia won all their league matches but lost the final... and India won a single league match but went on to win the final and take home the cup... Irony of life!

 

This match was played during my Engineering second year exam and I should say I was privileged to watch both this and the final innings of the master blaster!

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