Suyash Srivastava asks the question what will India be missing without Virender Sehwag.

When English bowlers hit the ground at Lord’s on Thursday (July 21) they would be doing so in a relaxed state of mind. While many would think this could be the confidence after winning the recently concluded ODI series against Sri Lanka, the experts of the game would know that the reason behind their smiles would be the absence of India’s phenomenal tormenter-Virender Sehwag. If VVS Laxman is India’s Disaster Management Expert I consider Sehwag to be their Early Onslaught Provider.

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Suyash Srivastava praises India’s one man army whose bowling led them to triumph in the World Cup.

A lot has been said about the way Yuvraj, Gambhir and Dhoni won the World Cup for the Men in Blue. I haven’t mentioned Tendulkar as it would be inappropriate to thank him for a single tournament. But we tend to forget someone else who has single handedly led the Indian bowling attack, had been in lethal form right throughout the tournament and has delivered much more than what was expected of him but has been deprived of some deserving praise. He is the spearhead of the Indian bowling attack, he is Zaheer Khan.

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While many cricket fans from the sub-continent will be anticipating a semi-final match between India and Pakistan, the quarter final to be played between India and Australia is set to be a thrilling contest.  And Australia have hurt India in the past. Back in 2003 India had a great chance to win the World Cup only for the Aussies to torment the men in blue in one of the most one-sided matches ever witnessed. The fans wounds haven’t heeled yet.

We all know that the Aussies aren’t consistent despite their invincibility in previous World Cups. They lost against India in the warm up games and even Pakistan ended their 34 match winning streak in the World Cup since 1999.

But even today the Australian pace factory of Lee, Johnson and Tait are potent enough to give goose bumps to any team. The only way as they say to match the Aussies is to match their aggression. Sehwag, Tendulkar and Yuvraj are the players to do that.

It will be interesting to see how the Aussies handle the Indian spinners. In the warm up game, Ashwin, Harbhajan, Chawla and Yuvraj shared nine wickets between them indicating their inability to handle quality spin bowling.

While everybody has been talking about Ponting who has been out of form for quite some time, the Indian players would underestimate Punter at their peril. Those sixes he hit that landed miles and miles away into the stands in 2003 clash between the two sides are still painful memories to many an Indian fan.

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Suyash Srivastava explores exactly what went wrong for India in their tie with England

They have been scoring over 300 since the beginning of this World Cup. But lets not forget, all the other teams have also been doing the same. 300 is an average score in many of the matches and therefore in the much anticipated India-England encounter high drama was something we all were expecting.

There were five phases of the historic match. India were predicted to be the winners after they scored 338. They were struggling (read losing) during the century stand between Andrew Strauss and Ian Bell. Zak struck back in that outstanding spell and they were once again back (read winning) in the match. Then came

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