The Virat show!

Going into the World T20 2016, India were billed as red hot favourites and rightly so. They had beaten Australia in their den and won the Asia cup comfortably. However, three games in, things were looking bleak. A lot of questions were being asked of the famed batting line up which failed to live up to its expectation.

It is in this context that India played Australia. Pressure was on India to live up to expectations. After an initial outburst of runs, Indian bowlers managed to pull back and restrict Australia to a manageable score on a slowish wicket.

During India's chase win predictor showed something that others believed was difficult (if not impossible), an India win. Right from the beginning, it showed an upper hand to India with as high as 73% chances of winning. Even with odds against India in the final overs, it predicted a 55% chance for an India win. In fact India's chances never slipped below 50% at any stage during the chase. If the game was decided based on win predictor alone, we could have stopped the game right after Virat crossed 30 runs in the match. That's how accurate it turned out to be. ICC should perhaps consider win predictor as a basis for deciding rain affected games ditching the more complex duckworth-lewis method.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out that the program showed what it did due to Virat's presence in the wicket. But it doesn't factor in the type of pitch, current team composition and more importantly the context and importance of the game. Yet, Virat proved the computer program right. He did this by taking his game to another level on another planet against a strong opposition and against all odds (read yuvi's unfortunate injury and slow wicket). He did this on his own despite the fact that one of the best finishers of the game was playing with him towards the end. Sure it helped but make no mistake it was Virat's show.

The fact that he did this by playing mainly old fashioned straight batted shots in a game that has helped invent an array of cricketing shots was refreshing to watch. To keep calm and take the team towards a win is something that Dhoni is known for. It wouldn't be an overstatement to say that he pulled off a "Dhonisque" innings in the end with help of the master himself. India was behind by 2-3 runs per over for most part of the game mainly due to poor scoring rate in power play. Under the circumstances, he timed his innings to give best opportunity for a victory.

T20 is the most unpredictable format in cricket. A good over, a wicket, a boundary or a six can change the course of the entire game. I believe the six he hit of Faulkner over long off was the game changer. It was no ordinary shot. Faulkner was bowling a barrage of slower deliveries. This normally makes the batsmen use power to clear the fence. The aspect that made this shot special was the use of straight bat. I thought he was gone as there was no way you can clear the long off boundary playing a lofted shot to a rising slower delivery using straight bat. But, that's exactly what happened. It turned out to be an extraordinary shot. This pumped up Virat and team India and demoralised the Aussies.

Sachin pulled off something like this against Australia in Sharjah when Tom Moody was bowling. That shows the league in which this man plays his game. Sachin's knock against Aussie in Sharjah enabled India win the tournament. I am confident that this effort by Virat will fire up India to reach the finals.

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