Amazing series win Down Under

Team India led by MS Dhoni have beaten ODI world champions Australia in their own den by defeating them back to back in two finals of Commonwealth Bank Series. This victory will be cherished for a long time by Indian cricket fans. Incidentally it is first Indian victory in last 6 years in a ODI series involving after three or more teams ! The last one was Natwest Series victory against England in 2002.

A few observations

• The major credit for the victory should go the captain MS Dhoni for making bold decisions, like opting for Piyush Chawla and Praveen Kumar to play in finals, which took Aussies by surprise.
• Some person made a statement recently that Aussie cricketers time their retirement perfectly. Like Shane warne did in Ashes Series last year and Glenn McGrath in 2007 ICC world cup. Unfortunately one of the greatest wicketkeeper Adam Gilchirst couldn't do the same.
• Sachin Tendulkar came to the party at the right time, his effort was similar to the one he did at Sharjah against Australia in 1998. He delivered after receiving a lot of criticism from former players, especially from his buddy during initial days of career Sanjay Manjrekar in a column in TOI.
• It was nice to witness reliable bench strength of India. Many people got injured in the course of series but the reserve players grabbed the opportunity with both hands. When Zaheer got injured Ishant came, when RP Singh got injured Praveen Kumar came in and delivered exceptionally well.

• As Sunil Gavaskar said Indians should not be very much carried with the victory there should be retrospection also. The major issues are poor ground fielding and not able to accelerate in later stage of the innings. Many players got out due to poor shot selection.
  
• Finally kudos to Harbhajan Singh for keeping himself cool after all the unfortunate controversies. His ball did the taking in the both the finals where he got rid of his favorite friends Andrew Symonds and Mathew Hayden.