Mr Curator plays his role to perfection

The Karachi pitch Curator must be too good to provide such wickets all through the tournament. If there is an award for non cricketing skills, he should be awarded for Man of the Tournament. Over 600 runs was scored in 95 overs for the third time in the tournament and it has been a paradise for batsmen and hell for the bowlers. It should be no different for the finals and the toss will play a vital role in the finals outcome of the match.

It was really heartening to see that after a long time India has chased a big total with contributions from all its top order batsmen. In the past it used to be either Sachin,Sehwag or Gangully to score big hundred and few other batsmen used to play around them but yesterday it was from all the top four scoring runs and at no stage the opposition looked to come back into the match. Sehwag and Gambhir started well, Raina and Dhoni played their part to perfection for Youraj and R.Sharma to finish the match comfortably. Murali was the one bowler who could produce some turn and bounce even in this wicket to finish with figures of 2-44 from his 10, all other bowlers looked ordinary in this flat track. Good to see Ishant Sharma getting some wickets in the early overs and surprisingly R.P.Singh bowled a controlled spell to support I.Sharma, seems Ohja is gaining in confidence on every match he plays. Irfan Pathan played his part by gifting 80 runs from his 10, in the last 24 matches he has taken 22 wickets at an average of over 44 and economy rate of 6.25, do we still need him in the XI. Hope Kirsten and Dhoni drop him for the finals and give a chance to Gony.

I am still not comfortable to see Dhoni at No 4, he should be batting at No 6 and that is the place where he can change the course of the match. Also for long term in good tracks like Australia,SouthAfrica or England, i dont think he has the technique to survive the swing,bounce and at times the new ball. He might play some big innings in the sub-continent but i feel it should be for the pure batsmen like R.sharma,Raina to take that position and gain in experience, even Youraj has been struggling to perform in oversees bouncy tracks.

BCCI warns coach Kirsten for writing in his personnel blog (garykirsten.com) on Team India. Kirsten has quickly put the issue to rest by confirming to the board that this will not happen again. Big BCCI is just twisting its muscle in all possible ways to keep its internal affairs under the board rooms carpet.

Australia plays West Indies in the carrebian with absolutely no interest left in the series as Australia has already won the series 3-0.