The Champions Trophy could not have hoped for a more dramatic final day of league matches. In Johannesburg, India tried their best to beat West Indies, while in Centurion, Pakistan pulled Australia back from what seemed a facile win. For most of West Indies' innings, Australia's score remained the more important one. Chasing 206, Australia collapsed from 140 for 2 in 31.1 overs to 187 for 8 in 45.5 overs, as India shot out a hapless West Indies for 129.
In their dressing room, India's support staff watched Star Cricket as opposed to ESPN, approvingly watching Australia choke while chasing the below-par total. India had a bittersweet start to their final league match. To qualify for the semi-final they needed Australia to lose to Pakistan in Centurion, and then thump West Indies in Johannesburg. By the time MS Dhoni walked out for the toss, though, Pakistan were hurtling towards defeat and Sachin Tendulkar had been ruled out of the match because of a stomach infection.
In Johannesburg, though, Dhoni's pace brigade - minus Ishant Sharma - enjoyed the friendly conditions, getting consistent swing and ripping through a hapless West Indies top order. With Australia's win looking certain, and India running out of Ashish Nehra and Praveen Kumar's overs, and with that choices to exploit the conditions, Dhoni decided to have some fun. Before the start of the 17th over, he gave his keeping gloves to Dinesh Karthik, and decided to bowl, something he does to good effect in the nets.
The first two balls Dhoni bowled were long hops, and were duly pulled and cut for boundaries by Travis Dowlin. The fourth ball, though, was fuller, and took the inside edge onto the stumps. And everybody had a bit of a laugh. Dhoni then proceeded to merrily seam his way through one more over, and also had a difficult edge dropped by Karthik.
If Dhoni was the surprise package, Nehra and Praveen expectedly exploited the helpful conditions. Praveen bowled a dream over to Andre Fletcher first up. Three outswingers, two of which beat Fletcher, were followed by two inswingers, one producing a close lbw shout. By now Fletcher should have been expecting an outswinger to cap off the over. He got one, but it started too close to the stumps for him to not play a shot. The edge was safely taken by first slip.
West Indies got their first loose delivery in the fourth over, and with that their first runs. That loose delivery was the aberration as Nehra gave Kieran Powell the left-armer's version of the perfect outswinger. Two balls later, Devon Smith went chasing another delivery moving away, and West Indies were 27 for 3 in eight overs. Floyd Reifer then edged Praveen to make it 31 for 4.
How Dhoni would have wished he had played another pace bowler on this pitch: dropping both RP Singh and Ishant Sharma on this bowling heaven was more a sign of exasperation, and an unsubtle message to the lacklustre bowlers. Abhishek Nayar, brought in to replace Ishant, couldn't extract much from the pitch, and meanwhile Australia kept inching closer to knocking India out. That, then, was the time for Dhoni to come on and take the fifth wicket.
David Bernard and Darren Sammy staged a mini recovery with a 32-run sixth-wicket stand. But when Amit Mishra got Bernard to edge to slip, another slide started. Nikita Miller managed 17 runs in 13 balls, but ran out of partners as Nehra and Praveen finished what they started, and rushed to watch - like the rest of the world - the Australia-Pakistan match.
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