India's Twenty20 debut & rise of a new youngster

Hooray!! Finally India has won a match on the current tour to South Africa. India's Twenty20 debut or Pro20 (as they call it here in South Africa) debut went off well considering that most of the players have never played a game in this version of the game. India as they have done on this tour regularly bolwed well in the beginning to keep the SA from getting off to a flying start. Graeme Smith began the game with a single accompanied with a huge cheer from the crowd. But he soon afterwards got out to Zaheer lbw, again falling across to an incoming delivery. He is pretty soon becoming Zaheer's bunny like Mohammed Yousuf was Irfan's two years ago. One person who started his 20/20 career with a bang was Agarkar who bowled a wcket maiden which is quite remarkable given 1. 20/20 format has a lot of hitting & 2. He is Agarkar
But his day was cut shot due to injury. The preliminary reports suggest that he has torn his groin muscle. This should be a worry for Indians as they would like everyone to be fit for the 8 ODI's in India before the World Cup. Those ODI's are now doubly important considering the form the Indian team has been in over the last 6 months & would like to be on a roll before heading out to Carribean. Agarkar is one of those experienced bowlers who can bowl at the death with Zaheer. Considering the way Indians are finishing the innings he importance to the team has gone up.
Indians for a change applied the pressure right throughout the innings (for a change!) & restricted SA to 126 on a lively pitch. They must be quite glad for the match to be of 20 overs each due to the fact that they could not maintain their intensity after 30 odd overs. They were for a change able to bowl a few yorker length deliveries but certainly not enough. Anyways right now Indians will take as many yorkers the ycan bowl with much glee.
Having restricted SA to 126 chasing 127 on this lively wicket which had been freshend up by a light drizzle during SA innings wasn't going to be a piece of cake Even though SA rested all their main bowlers for this game (Pollock, Ntini, Nel & Kallis) the target was gonna be challenging considering India's batting form & conditions. Tendulkar dparted early but Sehwag kept scoring around run a ball with his signature shot backward of point including a six over third man that we have become accustomed to. On the other end Mongia at number three was also playing well before running out Sehwag. It is funny to see that how Indian cricketers who are dropped, are to be sent home (in middle of tour) or stripped of captaincy or vice captaincy start playing welll. Mongia became more adventurous as the innings progressed & even went down the wicket to belt some meaty blows to keep the required run rate in check including a six over cover boundary. At the other end Dinesh Karthik who gave him good company was in middle of a bizzare sequnece of events. Karthik hit a bump ball that was caught by keeper & umpire Jerling gave him out but Karthik refused to go back dtsnding his ground. Umpire Jerling then rescineded his decision to refer it to 3rd umpire who gave Kartik not out. Eventually the right decision was taken but i think Chris Broad is gonna fine Kartik for not respecting the umpire's decision. The match became intresting when with 19 required of last 3 overs Smith brought on Peterson. Mongia had a brain cramp & instead of picking singles tried to finish off the match in a hurry. He played 2 slog shots & made no contact with ball & on 3rd ball hit it down long on's throat. The end of the match could have gotten ugly for India with no experienced batsman left but Karthik scored a boundary of the first ball of next over & a big six of Peterson's next over (when India needed 9 of 6) to put the result of the match beyond doubt.
Indians have been waiting for Dinesh Karthik to step up to the international arena since he whipped Sri Lanka for 70 runs of 39 balls in under-19 world cup which came in for special praise from his coach Robin Singh. Selected to the national team after Parthiv Patel's horror run he didn't do much with the bat except a 93 against Pakistan & was dropped in favour of attacking Dhoni. But he has rediscovered his for m as a batsmen & forced his way into the playing eleven as a pure batsman. He has given India a legitimate backup keeper-batsman which we have not seen in Indian team (who has had so many keepers who can't bat in recent time) since the time of Kiran More & Chandrakant Pandit .
This tour may have been about India's much vaunted youngsters failing in the ODI format but today it was about a youngster cooly stepping up & delivering it when it mattered.