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India wins do or
die battle
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Thanks to Veeru's swashbuckling knock and fine bowling
performance by under-rated pacemen, India clinched a moral
boosting win against New Zealand in her last league match and
stormed into the Saturday final. When whole Indian team had
returned to the pavilion for just 223 runs on the board, it
seemed that another big defeat was in the offing but Indian trio
of medium-pacers, Praveen Kumar, Ashish Nehra and Munaf Patel
bowled intelligently enough in favourable conditions to curb the
Kiwis Innings for only 118 runs, their lowest ever score against
India.
Defending a low score, Praveen Kumar and Ashish Nehra bowled
with great enthusiasm and determination in their opening spell
and put Kiwis in all kind of trouble right from the word go. In
his first over itself Praveen Kumar removed Guptill, by trapping
him in front of the wicket. In the 4th over, Ashish Nehra bowled
Wattling, to make the scorecard read |
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2
for 6 runs in 3.4 overs. Next to go was captain
Taylor who edged an out-swinger from Praveen Kumar
to wicketkeeper Dhoni. There after Kiwis wickets
fell at regular interval and the whole team
surrendered at 118 runs. Thanks to Mills, whose
belligerent knock of 52 runs lower down the order,
took the Kiwis total past 100, otherwise Kiwis team
at one stage was struggling at 53 for 8.
Earlier India made 223 runs in 46.3 overs. Opener
Virender Sehwag hit his 13th ODI hundred and
was the highest scorer in the India's Innings. The
next highest contributor was captain Dhoni who
scored 38 runs in 75 balls. Eight batsmen failed to
reach double figures
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New Records
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Virender Sehwag's century was his 6th ODI
hundred against New Zealand, thus he equaled
the Australian Ricky Ponting's record of
most centuries in ODI against Kiwis.
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Virender Sehwag and Mahendra Singh Dhoni
added 107 runs for the 5th wicket, which is
a new record for 5th wicket partnership
against New Zealand. The previous best was
92 runs, which was recorded by Sandeep Patil
and Dilip Vengsarkar at Brisbane in 1981.
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Kiwis total of 118 runs is their lowest ever
total in an ODI against India. Their
previous lowest was 126 runs at Mumbai in
1995.
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However India has reached the final of the triangular series but the
batsmen except Sehwag, are still struggling to find their rhythm.
The performance of Yuvraj, Raina, Rohit Sharma and Dhoni as well
have been miserable in the series. At least one of them must arise
to the occasion in the final otherwise be prepared to witness
another debacle in the final.
Click
here for --
Scorecard
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