5 in a row. England have no idea what’s going on at the moment as the Indian juggernaut rolls on. Viru get a second man of the match award for a blistering 91 runs. Kevin Pieterson gets a 111 not out, yet sees his team suffer their 5th consecutive defeat. India rested Munaf Patel and Gautam Gambhir, with Irfan Pathan and Rohit Sharma playing. England also made 2 changes, with Ian Bell and James Anderson replaced by Alastair Cook and Steve Harmison.
Owais Shah helped himself to an unbeaten 66 and along with skipper Pieterson, ensured England had a competitive total to defend. However, Sehwag had other plans and when he is in the kind of form that he is in at the moment, any total is chaseable. Tendulkar started slowly but quickly got to his 90th half-century at almost a run a ball. Three quick wickets fell for India but 50s to Dhoni and Raina ensured India finished with more than 6 overs to spare.
Man of the match Yuvraj scored a second consecutive century and also took 4 crucial wickets to take India to its second win of the series. Birthday boy Yousuf Pathan scores a scintillating maiden half centure and helped his team reach 292. For England, Owais Shah scored a fifty and there was some awesome power hitting from Andrew “Freddie” Flintoff. They just left it too late for the big hitting but the 3rd power play produced 59 runs.
India: 292/9. Yuvraj Singh 118. Gautham Gambhir 70. Yusuf Pathan 50*.
England: 238 all out. Andrew Flintoff 43. Yuvraj Singh 4 wickets
The morning session was reason for some controversy with several calling into question Dhoni’s negative tactics – Ishanth Sharma and Zaheer Khan had an extended spell with Harbhajan being introduced 15 minutes before lunch and the two pacers consistently bowled on and outside offstump to an 8 man offside field.
Sourav Ganguly playing his last test almost pulled it off – a hundred on debut and in his final test. All morning he’d played Krejza quite well, stepping out and all. But around the 80 run mark he began to take it easy and slow and in a way that cost him. Dhoni came out after lunch looking to attack but was out soon after his 50 and Krejza went on to have a hat-trick situation with two beautiful deliveries to Zaheer Khan and Amit Mishra.
Watch cricket highlights (including Sachin Tendulkar’s 40th test century) from the 1st day of the Nagpur Test - Australia vs India - the 4th and final test from the 2008 Border-Gavaskar Trophy Series played on November 6, 2008.
Loading ...