Mumbai: India’s selection committee chairman Dilip Vengsarkar described India’s nine run victory over Australia in the second final as 'a tremendous achievement' and hoped this would bring the Australia’s domination in the One-Dayers to an end.
“It is a tremendous achievement by the Indian players and the credit for this should go to the whole team as they proved to everyone that the mighty Australians are beatable. I also sincerely hope that this victory has put an end to the Aussies domination in recent times because a single team dominating the scene for a long time in any sports is not good at all,” Vengsarkar told Cricketnext.com here on Tuesday.
“The way the boys responded after narrowly losing the Test series 1-2 is something that will make every Indian proud and I think the Indian skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni handled the team very well with the initial stages of the tri-series being a little disappointing from the batting point of you,” he added.
“The boys were up against two of the finest One-Day teams in the world and I think their performance only speaks volumes of their determination and focus on the job at hand. Their will to win against all odds only proves that they have come a long way and it was indeed a true professional approach by one and all,” Vengsarkar observed.
Former Indian captain and coach Ajit Wadekar said the Indian players peaked at the right time to give one of the best performances in the recent times.
“If you see the earlier matches, the players particularly the batsmen struggled initially. Even Sachin Tendulkar was finding it difficult to contribute substantially to the team’s cause even though he was getting to 20s and 30s. However, his century in the first final and the 91 he scored today really proved that he is player for the big occasion and the youngsters can learn a lot from him,” Wadekar said.
“It is not often that we see a captain has so much of faith in a new player as Mahendra Singh Dhoni had on Praveen Kumar and the Uttar Pradesh lad did not let his skipper down and bowled his heart out with their new strike bowler Ishant Sharma not fit for the crucial match,” he added.
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“The contributions from players like Rohit Sharma, Robin Uthappa, Gautam Gambhir and Yuvraj Singh too went a long way in the tournament and the players seem to enjoy every moment on the field despite being under tremendous pressure by the Aussie media off it,” Wadekar observed.
“The bowlers too complimented each other with some fine performances. I think Praveen Kumar showed lot of maturity while bowling with the new ball after Ishant was ruled out of the second final and others, including the two spinner Harbhajan and Piyush, bowled very economically to bring about the victory,” he added.
Former India stumper and chief selector Kiran More termed the winning team as the best One-Day team in ages.
“Personally I feel this is the best team in recent times. I would go to the extent of saying that this is the team for the 2011 World Cup,” More said.
“I thought the youngsters were outstanding. This is the way to go about in one-day cricket. Even during my tenure I backed youth. I congratulate the selectors on taking some hard decisions. I think they should be persisted with,” he added.
“For all you know, Ishant Sharma is bound to have a few ordinary series just like Irfan Pathan, but we should be patient with our boys,” More observed.
“The fact that we won the final without our strike bowler, Ishant Sharma, is a tribute to our bench strength. Also, bear in mind that RP Singh and Zaheer Khan were not around. Imagine what our bowling composition would be once they are back,” he added.
Former Indian opening batsman Ashok Mankad called the win in the CB Series final as “ a dream win” and hoped that the Indian team would become a force to reckon with in the near future.
“The youthful team deserves all the praise and the selectors should be complimented for keeping faith with the youth at the expense of experienced players. I think Dhoni handled the team particularly well and his faith in Praveen Kumar’s abilities paid rich dividends,” Mankad said.
“I think the credit for this victory should go to every member of the team for believing in themselves and for not cracking under pressure. At some stage in this tri-series, both our batsmen and bowlers were a bit low on confidence but they kept on trying hard and the results were there for all to see,” he added.
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