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.
India complete a comprehensive series win by taking an unassailable 4-0 lead. The team led by Mahendra Singh Dhoni are looking like the team to beat in all forms of international cricket. The match was a reduced over match with each side facing 22 overs. In hindsight, the umpires should just have made it a Twenty20 match.
England were today undone by Virender Sehwag with the bat and Zaheer Khan with the bowl. Ishant and Munaf bowled terrific as well. Although the partnership between Owais Shah and Andrew “Freddie” Flintoff almost took the match away.
Virender Sehwag was given man of the match award for his stand and deliver stuff. He mentioned that his previous IPL match of 40 odd from 17 balls gave him the confidence to go after Flintoff and co.
India make it 3 in a row all thanks to Duckworth/Lewis system. England batted first and scored 240 all out. Ravi Bopara was the top scorer with 60. For India Harbhajan Singh took 3 wickets and 2 each to Ishant and Munaf. India scored 198/5 from 40 overs before bad light stopped play. India were ahead as per the D/L caluclation and won the match by 16 runs. Virender Sehwag was the top scorer for India. Man of the match awarded to Harbhajan Singh.
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
Watch the full highlights of India vs England 1st ODI. Yuvraj smashed an unbeaten century. Sehwag and Gambhir got India to a flying start. Then Zaheer and Munaf bowled a terrific opening spell to get 4 England wickets before they could score 50. Hugely convincing and a completely one-sided game.
I still have a vivid image of Sunil Gavaskar angrily trying to take his opening partner off the MCG with him in 1981 when he was given out lbw in a Test match. — Ricky Ponting
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