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Plays of the day

Tendulkar hits form, Yuvraj continues to slip

Nagraj Gollapudi at the Bellerive Oval

February 26, 2008

	Sachin Tendulkar finally found a semblance of form © Getty Images

Here's to you
As soon as he had stepped out against Muttiah Muralitharan and hit him over mid-off for four, Sachin Tendulkar pointed his bat towards India's dressing room in celebration of his first fifty of the series. It was, perhaps, a gesture of thanks to his team-mates for showing patience as he walked out of the shadows of doubt that had enveloped him in the tri-series till now. Before this match Tendulkar could muster only 128 runs in seven innings but chasing a small target, he dazzled a relatively small Hobart crowd.

Getting out of the web
Humour is never lost on Mahendra Singh Dhoni. Having neatly completed an easy offering off Kumar Sangakkara's outside edge, Dhoni flapped his gloves and mocked at the webbing, making sure there was nothing wrong this time after he had to change his gloves because in India's previous game, against Australia, the webbing was against the laws of the game.

Ripper!
Point is the toughest position to field in the game. The fielder is moving in and normally the ball travels at a high speed. Reflexes and agility are the key. Mahela Jaywardene slashed hard at a short one from Praveen Kumar and it went straight and low to Rohit Sharma, who picked it up cleanly shoe-laces level. Calm, poised, alert - full marks to Rohit, in a position previously occupied by Yuvraj Singh, now placed at mid-off.

Free falling
Speaking of Yuvraj, one of the best fielders inside the 30-yard circle till a niggling knee injury acted up further, he has been abysmal by his standards. Its obvious that Yuvraj, knee brace in place wherever he's been for over a month now, has been slow to move and that has allowed opposition batsmen to capitalise. Today was one such case again: Chamara Kapugedera drove uppishly off Munaf Patel towards mid-off, but a static Yuvraj dived on top of the ball. It sneaked past him and the batsmen ran four. Munaf was understandably disgusted, while Yuvraj had his head down.

Converting a six into two
The ball was sailing over the square-leg boundary when Gautam Gambhir, running a few yards to his left, leaped, caught the ball with both hands, but realised he would cross the rope in trying to regain balance, so he flicked it to the ground. A catch dropped, but a six avoided.

Nagraj Gollapudi is an assistant editor at Cricinfo

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