Terrific Tuesday for Indian Sports!

It had to be a very calm, cool, composed, a man with wonderful temperament, God of second-innings-on-day-five on with the job to sail India through and get an unassailable 1-0 lead against the once solid and unbeatable Australia. Yeah, it had to be our very own Very Very Special Laxman.
Aussies were on top of things and favorites for last one-and-a-half days of Mohali test. India finished day-four with 55-4 on board and with a target of 216. Though Tendulkar was at the crease with Zaheer, the top order including Gambhir, Sehwag, Dravid and Raina were in. I knew if India were to win the test from here, it had to be because of Laxman. It happened so, India lost Zaheer, Tendulkar, Dhoni and Bhajji much before lunch on day five, with a hurricane task of 92 runs still to get on Laxman, Ishant and Ojha. Laxman and Ishant put up a splendid 81 run 8th-wicket partnership, giving India a miraculous win. Not to forget, Laxman had a bad back all through this test, came in 8-down in the first innings and 6-down with Raina as runner in the second. But as Farooq Engineer said later during the day.. with bad back or with no back, Laxman was always going to be too much for the Aussies to handle!

I saw the final overs of this nail-bitting finish. Laxman was not only getting the runs, but also managing which singles to run for, which ones to let go and when and how long to expose the tail to the Aussie attack. One instance, when Ojha was trying to get a run not called by VVS, made our calm and cool guy lose his temper. This only showed how desperate he was to win the match for India.

VVS got unbeaten 73 off 79 balls (SR 92.4) with 8-boundaries and Ishant scored 31 off 92 balls, which happens to be the highest number of deliveries faced by an Indian in second innings of this test. With this win India proved they are number one test playing nation. Ponting also will now have to wait longer to register his first win as a test-captain against India in India, having played 6 games already and losing 4 off them.
For Laxman this wasn't the first time. He has done it time and again and that too against the mighty Australians. His 281-run memorable contribution with Dravid's 140-odd to win the Eden Garden test against the same opponent way back in 2001 was the greatest of all. India then were on a follow-on and Australia were on a winning streak, having won 16 tests before getting a beating from India in Kolkata. It is against Australia that he has got his top-four best scores; his average in the second innings is 50 - there's something very very special about him. Ponting also later during the day added that it was only Laxman that they were worried about.

This Tuesday hasn't been only about cricket! India won 5 gold medals in commonwealth games today! Two in shooting, one each for Abhinav Bindra and Gagan Narang, and three in wrestling for Ravinder Singh, Anil Kumar and Sanjay Kumar. All Indians are proud of their achievement and stand to salute their heroism.