India beat West Indies by 125 runs to inch closer to World Cup semifinal
Manchester, Jun 27: Indian bowlers led by the deadly Mohammed Shami produced yet another splendid performance to put their team on the cusp of a semi-final berth with a 125-run rout of the West Indies in their sixth World Cup encounter here Thursday.
With 11 points, India are now almost through and another win in their next three games will seal their position in the top four as West Indies were knocked out with two games remaining.
India scored 268 for 7, riding on half-centuries by Virat Kohli (72 off 82 balls) and Mahendra Singh Dhoni (56 off 61 balls) and it turned out to be good enough as West Indies were shot out for 124 in only 34.2 overs.
In two successive matches now, the bowlers have more than covered up for a mediocre show from the batsmen, save skipper Kohli.
Shami (4/16 in 6.2 overs) was at his best in the first spell as he first bounced Chris Gayle out and then bowled an off-cutter to remove Shai Hope.
In his second spell, he got Shimron Hetmyer while new ball partner Jasprit Bumrah (2/9 in 6 overs) was fast and accurate getting two wickets of successive deliveries.
Kuldeep Yadav (1/35 in 9 overs) and Yuzvendra Chahal (2/39 in 7 overs) were too hot for the Caribbean batsmen on a track, where run scoring became increasingly difficult with passage of time.
The last seven wickets fell for 63 runs in a space of 14 overs which indicated the Caribbean plight.
Bhuvneshwar Kumar with his incisive swing bowling has always been Chris Gayle's (6 off 19 balls) nemesis but it was in-form Shami, who drew the first blood with a short ball that climbed on the big man and the mistimed pull was taken by Kedar Jadhav, running sideways from his mid-on position.
Hope, West Indies' next big hope, got one from Shami that came in breaching his defence.
Sunil Ambris (31, 40 balls) and Nicholas Pooran (28 off 50 balls) steadied the ship with a 55-run stand before both were dismissed in quick succession.
Hardik Pandya trapped Ambris plumb in-front before Pooran mistimed a lofted shot to Shami in the deep.
The skipper Jason Holder then played a rank bad shot off Chahal as West Indies were knocked out of the contest at the halfway stage, reeling at 98 for five.
When India batted, Dhoni scratched around for the better part of his innings before exploding in the final over to take India to 268 for 7 on a track that look good for batting.
There has been a lot of talk about Dhoni's failure to rotate the strike and Thursday's batting effort on another dry and slow track will only amplify the criticism before he got 16 in the final over to finish on 56 off 61 deliveries with three fours and two sixes.
More than his strike-rate, his percentage of dot balls remains a concern for India.
If India played 152 dot balls against Afghanistan, the run-less delivery count was 163 in this game.
It was Pandya, whose 46 off 38 balls took India past 250-run mark after skipper Kohli scored his fourth half-century.
The middle-order looked jittery again with skipper Kohli not getting enough support from the other batsmen.
In fact, Dhoni's rustiness rubbed off a bit on the Indian captain, who ultimately gifted his wicket to his opposite number.
Kohli hit eight boundaries with stand-out shot being a lofted drive over covers off Oshane Thomas.
Veteran Kemar Roach (3/36) bowled fast and fuller length deliveries using the off-cutters to good effect while skipper Holder (2/33 in 10 overs) was economical, troubling the batsmen with back of the length deliveries.
Left-arm spinner Fabian Allen (0/52 in 10 overs) didn't get any wicket but a crucial aspect of his spell was the last five overs in which he gave away only 15 runs.
This was another left-arm spinner after Mitchell Santner and Shakib Al Hasan, who has now troubled Dhoni with his wicket-to-wicket bowling.
When Holder and Roach bowled fast and back of length, the former India captain found it difficult to manoeuvre the bowling but the final score turned out to be much above par.
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TVK falls short within touching distance; what next to ensure majority
Chennai (PIT): With TVK falling 10 short of a majority, its leader Vijay has the option of forming a minority government in Tamil Nadu without any outside support, analysts said on Tuesday.
Senior political analyst Sumanth Raman told PTI that the TVK is likely to opt to be a minority government with outside support.
"Since it is the single largest party, TVK has the option to go for that. I don't think he (Vijay) will opt for official support from other political party's MLAs", he said.
"If he opts for minority government, the only thing is that, Vijay will have to prove the support once again after six months".
Raman also pointed out that in 2006 when DMK won only 92 seats, the then party president, the late M Karunanidhi formed a minority government with outside support.
In a completely unexpected turn of events in the Tamil Nadu Assembly elections, the TVK has emerged victorious, putting an end to the almost six decade-long dominance of the two major Dravidian parties--DMK and AIADMK.
By clinching victory in its debut electoral contest, the party has elevated its status to that of a recognised political entity. However, the Vijay-led TVK did not secure a mandate large enough to form a government with an absolute majority on its own, requiring another 10 to cross the finish line. Experts have varied opinions.
Specifically, to attain a simple majority, a political party must win at least 118 out of the total 234 constituencies. The TVK, however, secured victory in 108 constituencies. Given that the TVK fell short of the majority mark, what might unfold next?
TVK leader Vijay has won in both constituencies he contested--Perambur in Chennai and Tiruchirappalli East. As per the election commission rule, he will have to resign from one of these seats. TVK sources said that the leader is likely to surrender the Tiruchirappalli assembly seat.
If Vijay does so, the party's total tally of seats will decrease by one. Then it will be 107. Adding to the number games, TVK appointed Speaker of the Assembly will be ineligible to cast a vote during a confidence motion and the party's effective voting strength will be reduced by yet another seat, which comes to 106.
Accordingly, the TVK requires the support of an additional 12 members to demonstrate its majority. As of now, within the DMK alliance, the Congress party has secured five seats, the two Communist parties have won two seats each (totaling four), while the DMDK has secured one seat, the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) has won two seats and the VCK has secured two seats.
Within the AIADMK alliance, the PMK has grabbed four seats, the BJP has won one seat, and the AMMK has secured one seat. Going by the calculations, if TVK gets the support of other parties within both alliances, it would gain an additional 21 seats.
TVK could potentially secure a total of 129 seats (108 + 21). However, the TVK does not require the support of all those parties, and the backing of just 12 members would suffice.
As Vijay is expected to visit Lok Bhavan on Wednesday (May 6) to meet the governor Rajendra Vishwanath Arlekar to stake claim to form government, the governor is expected to offer the TVK two options.
First, he may summon the TVK chief and instruct him to demonstrate his majority on the floor of the legislative assembly. Alternatively, he might ask Vijay to gather letters of support from "allied" parties and submit them to him.
If the TVK secures support exceeding 118 seats, the governor would invite the party form the government. If TVK fails to garner support from other political parties, it will be denied the opportunity to form the government.
In such a scenario, the governor has the option to invite the DMK, the party holding the second-highest number of seats to form the government.
If DMK too is unable to form a government, the state of Tamil Nadu will come under governor's rule for the subsequent six months. Following this period, fresh legislative Assembly elections will be once again held across all 234 constituencies.
Another political analyst Durai Karuna ruled out that TVK will go for a minority government.
"If he (Vijay) gives an appeal, many political parties including Congress, VCK and left parties will join TVK", he claimed. "In addition, the AIADMK, which has decided to organise MLAs meeting on Wednesday, might also announce that it would support TVK unconditionally".
He said a clear picture on Vijay's decision will emerge in a couple of days.
Tharasu Shyam, political critic, claimed that Congress was "holding talks with Vijay."
"From now on, the DMK must change its approach and this applies equally to the AIADMK," he said in an apparent reference to some reported difference of opinion between allies DMK and Congress over seat-sharing and power-sharing ahead of the April 23 polls.
Incidentally, AICC in-charge for Tamil Nadu, Girish Chodankar, on Tuesday admitted that the Congress party leadership's decision to stick with the DMK alliance went against strong grassroots sentiment favouring the TVK.
"The local leaders, the grassroots level leaders, were suggesting if Rahul Gandhi, who has a large acceptance in Tamil Nadu, joins the campaign with Vijay, it will create a big impact and we can sweep the Tamil Nadu polls, and get somewhere around 180-190 seats," Chodankar told PTI Videos.
