A weekend that was!!!

A great day in history of sports. And a great weekend!!! Too much adrenaline to be contained in veins. You don't know what to see, what not to see, of course you can demonstrate your remote control skills to miss as less as you can, just like Uday did.

Australia gets off to flurry start, courtesy Gilchrist and then Ponting and Hussey stretched it to the limits. 434-4. Highest ever total in the history of ODIs, breaking a record almost 10 years old, which many brave teams closed to but could never broke it. Australia broke it in style and broke with margin of 36 runs. Whew!!! Now who's gonna chase that? 330 is the record chasing total in ODIs. 434?? Impossible. No one has chased that even in Test Match. Can Proteas do it? Doesn't seem so. Loosing first wicket even before they get into double figures, but then miracle happens at The Wanderers. SA skipper Greame Smith and Man-of-the-match-to-be Herschelle Gibbs punishes Australian bowlers all around the ground. In the midway, after few wickets, they seem to lose the track, but with the support of tail-enders Mark Boucher takes Proteas to the win in style with pen-ultimate delivery boundary marking his half-century and an exciting match and series win for South Africa. Australian record is broken in less than five hours. Lewis ends up with record of higest beaten bowler in ODI history with figures of 10-0-113-0. Statisticians have hard job at hand. So many runs scored and so many records tumbled. A match that was!!!

It was bound to be an intense battle. Michael Schumacher. Making his intensions clear in qualifying by snatching the poll position and issuing warning to young guns. I ain't out of here so soon. Fernando Alonso. No mood to give up his well-deserved champion title. Kimi Raikonnen. A poor chap. Had to satisfy himself with runner-up position last season courtesy repeated engine failures of his McLaren. This time too starting from the back of the grid due to engine failure in qualifying. Alonso made his intensions clear when he overtook Massa to find himself on tail of Schumacher. Then onwards these two were involved in a fierce battle for the dominance. Ferrari crew managed to keep Schumi on top after first pit but Renault overpowered them and Alonso took first place while coming out of pit and wheel-to-wheel battle with Schumi. At some points, Schumi went close enough but this Spaniard, Alonso is here to stay and didn't let seven-time world champion overtake him. And while these two were busy in their battle of man, the man who started behind all others snatched the last podium position owing to some great driving and clever one-pit strategy. First Grand Prix of 2006 season, the Baharin Grand Prix has shown us the flavour, as to what this season has in bag for us. A race that was!!!

Everybody was certain about the future of the second test between India and England at Mohali, when only 65 overs were bowled in two days game. But Indians aren't giving up so easily. After restricting England to 300 in first innings with man-of-the-match deserving performance by Bespectacled, engineer, mild-mannered, soft-spoken, unlike Warne and Muralitharan, metronomic line-and-length, hardly turns the ball, flipper, loyal soldier, matchwinner Anil Kumble, Rahul Dravid with some tailenders support made sure that India secured handy lead of 38 runs in the first innings. All well upto this point, but on fourth day England tasted what they had been deprived of till now, India's spin attack. The way Bhajji and Kumble were turning, flipping, googlying, doosraing deliveries, each England batsman must be praying Bismilla-e-rehaman-e-rahim-esque thanks to Jesus for each surviving delivery. The penultimate day of second test match saw England reduced to 112-5, which ultimately resulted in 9-wicket win and 1-0 series lead for India. A day that was!!!

PS:- Adjectives used for Kumble are a blatant lift from Amit Varma's India Uncut.