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Natwest Challenge : India Vs England, 2nd ODI at
The Oval |
England win the
Natwest Challenge as India fall by 70
runs
Scorecard
Sept 3rd,
2004:
The
stage is set for yet another must-win situation
game for India. India had been beaten
comprehensively in the first of the 3 ODIs at
Trent Bridge. It has been a bad phase for the
Indian team as they have been playing some
ordinary cricket, and add to that the tennis
elbow injury to Sachin Tendulkar. England
meanwhile would like to seal the Natwest
Challenge by winning today’s match at The
Oval.
Flip of
the Coin:
Sourav
Ganguly won the toss and put England to bat
first. The wicket did look to have some moisture
but once the new ball is played off, it promises
out to be a good batting track. The outfield is
also much quicker at The Oval compared to Trent
Bridge. India brought in all rounder-only on the
paper - Ajit Agarkar in place of Ashish Nehra,
but the big change was bringing in Harbhajan
Singh for Anil Kumble. England stuck to the same
winning XI at Trent Bridge.
England's
Batting:
Perfect
bowling conditions and one would have easily
expected 2-3 wickets to be down with the new
ball. But that wasn’t going to be the case
today as Irfan Pathan and Laxmipathy Balaji
failed to put the ball in the right spot on most
occasions. Balaji in particular was pathetic,
spraying the white ball on both the sides of the
stumps. As the Indian pace trio struggled to
make any inroads, England openers Treschothick
and Solanki flayed the bowling to score 71 runs
in the first 10 overs. Ganguly was forced to
bring in Harbhajan as early as the 12th
over and he provided the breakthrough by
removing Treschothick. Treschothick’s
dangerous innings came to an end after his
attempted sweep shot produced a top edge and
Balaji at square leg did the rest. Michael
Vaughan continued to have a bad time in the
shorter version of the game, this time he was
out for a nought. Dravid took a blinder of a
catch moving to his left and taking the faint
nick off Vaughan’s blade. Harbhajan was the
bowler again. Encouraged by the turn and bounce
extracted by Harbhajan, Ganguly brought in
Sehwag. Sehwag responded to his captain’s call
by removing Andrew Strauss and Vikram Solanki
(48) in quick time. Strauss was out after his
attempted sweep shot landed into short fine
leg’s hands and Solanki was a victim of Rahul
Dravid’s blinder no.2 – yet another down the
leg side catch. All the Indian bowlers had
disastrous figures with the exception of
Harbhajan. The three medium pacers Pathan,
Balaji and Agarkar went for 195 runs in the 24
overs that they bowled.
With
England in a precarious situation, Flintoff and
Paul Collingwood took their time to settle down.
The pair began to settle down and played off
Harbhajan’s 10 overs which produced only 14
runs. Slowly and steadily both the batsmen
started to play their typical shots and Flintoff
in particular was suddenly into high gear.
Flintoff sent the ball out of the ground four
times and England were now set to bat India out
of the game. Flintoff was just a run short of a
scintillating hundred, but Agarkar got rid of
him after inducing a top edge. By the time
Flintoff was out, England were sitting pretty at
279/5 in the 48th over. Paul
Collingwood and Geraint Jones hit some amazing
shots to give England a perfect finish to their
innings at 307/5. Collingwood remained unbeaten
on 89.
India's Reply:
Darren
Gough bowled his trademark inswinger to dismiss
Virender Sehwag lbw for a duck. Sourav Ganguly
who was joined by Laxman now, started to free
his shoulders and play some attacking drives
through the packed off side. But unfortunately,
Ganguly got run out in one of the most bizarre
fashion as Laxman who was the non-striker ran
straight into Ganguly. The result was the exit
of a fuming Ganguly. Md.Kaif was given a
promotion ahead of out of form Rahul Dravid. The
Indian innings got a move ahead after Kaif
played a couple of good shots off Harmison. The
pair of Laxman and Kaif took India slowly into
the game but with the introduction of Ashley
Giles, India were down again. Laxman played an
unproductive push straight into the hands of
short extra covers and India were now 99/3. It
was soon 102/4 after Dravid played a wild shot
outside off stump to Alex Wharf. It was all up
to Kaif and Yuvraj now, but Kaif after getting
to his half century got out to Giles. With that
Kaif not only threw his wicket but also the
match leaving India down and out at 113/5.
Ashley Giles picked up his third wicket after
removing Rohan Gavaskar with India at 143/6.
Ajit Agarkar tried to make up for the 60 runs he
gave away while bowling. He did succeed to a
small extent after he hit two big sixes off
Giles and Vaughan. Any minute chances of an
unlikely Indian victory were dashed off when
Yuvraj got out to Darren Gough. Darren Gough
picked up two more wickets removing Pathan and
Agarkar and India were 173/9. Gough had to be
stranded on 199 ODI wickets as his 10 overs
quota came to an end. Harbhajan and Balaji put
on an astonishing stand of 64 for the last
wicket to delay the English victory. Harbhajan
played some scintillating shots to score 41 and
Balaji was the last to fall as he was yorked by
Andrew Flintoff.
England
won by 70 runs and with that the Natwest
Challenge. Andrew Flintoff was awarded the Man
of the Match for his brilliant 99. The teams now
clash for the 3rd and final ODI at
Lords’ on Sunday.
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