Virender Sehwag
The India-England match to be played in Bengaluru on the 27th is one of the major games that is going to be played in the Group B matches. Along with India and England in that very group are South Africa and West Indies who are the other two teams who have a great chance of moving to the next round. However one cannot deny that Bangladesh, Ireland and Netherlands too are pretty competitive and these so called minnows can topple the very best on their day.
Thus given the importance of Sunday’s match it becomes that much more imperative for the key players from both the teams to be at their very best. Injuries which are a common occurrence in every sport including cricket cannot bog down a sportsman from playing in the main stage games and similar is the situation with Virender Sehwag.
Sehwag was injured yesterday while playing in the nets on his chest while a ball hit him. Thus for the rest of the day Sehwag did not bat , however it was informed by the team manager Ranjib Biswal that Sehwag is fit enough for playing in Sunday’s match.
Another injury scare had come earlier in the week when Sachin Tendulkar had gone in for a MRI scan of his left knee. However this too was shirked away by the manager as a precautionary measure and there was no serious outcome of the scan as well.
Thus both of India’s openers are fully fit for playing in the Sunday faceoff.
As far as England are concerned, apart from Stuart Broad others are pretty fit to play the match. Broad to is on the line of uncertainties for the fact that he is suffering from a stomach upset, something which he had suffered the moment England had arrived in India about two weeks back.
Broad was a little expensive against Netherlands in their very first match very the 24 year old gave away 65 runs in 10 overs taking two wickets.
England captain, Andrew Strauss too accepted that the match between the two nations was not only very important but the kind of match that one likes to play, given the ambiance of the ground.
Meanwhile Ravi Bopara is of the opinion that the IPL has helped him to get a hang of the conditions in the sub-continent and thus he is much more comfortable playing in these conditions now than ever.
He says, “I know what the pitch is likely to do in the subcontinent. IPL has definitely made me a better player and a more confident one.”
So for both the teams the bottom line would be to put their best leg forward and in the words of Andrew Strauss, which is applicable for both the teams, “It (The game) would be potentially a huge lift for us and would send out a pretty strong marker to other sides, but we’ve got to do it (play well) first, concentrate on the process of doing it.”
Tags: Bengaluru, Cricket, England, India, Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag, World Cup
