|
India Win first ODI by Five
Wickets
'Pakistan
Times' Sports Desk
GUWAHATI (India): India
beat Pakistan by five wickets in the first one-dayer at Guwahati on Monday
to take a 1-0 lead in the five match series.
India lost Tendulkar early in the run-chase but that was the only blip as
Sourav Ganguly and Gautam Gambhir, followed by Yuvraj Singh and MS Dhoni
made useful contributions to steer India across the finish line.
The Indian bowlers were disciplined and restricted Pakistan to 239 for 7.
Murali Kartik and Harbhajan Singh in particular were outstanding and Sachin
Tendulkar took a couple of crucial wickets as well.
Earlier, the Indian chase suffered an early setback as Shoaib Akhtar trapped
master blaster Sachin Tendulkar in his second over for just four runs
reducing India to 14 for one.
Thereafter, Gautam Gambhir and Sourav Ganguly put up an unbeaten fifty run
partnership to India in control.
Earlier, an unbeaten half century by Mohammad Yousuf lifted Pakistan to 239
for seven after electing to bat.
Opener Salman Butt began well and scored a half-century but the Indian
bowlers pulled things back, picking up wickets at regular intervals, to peg
back the scoring.
The middle order batsmen, however, failed to contribute to the momentum and
Pakistan's intensity dropped during the middle overs when Harbhajan Singh
and Murali Kartik bowled superb spells.
Sachin Tendulkar proved useful with the ball, ending with 2 for 33 from 5
overs.
Yousuf, however held the innings together with 83 off 88 balls to take the
visitors to a fighting total.
Salman Butt and Kamran Akmal got their team off to a quick start bringing up
44 runs in 10 overs. Zaheer Khan, in particular, was dispatched to the fence
on a couple of occasions.
India finally got a breakthrough in the 11th over when Irfan Pathan had
Kamran Akmal caught plumb in front for 12 runs off 30 deliveries.
Butt along with Younis Khan kept up the tempo and the former struck a fluent
fifty - his 5th in ODIs - before a terrible mix up with his partner resulted
in his run out.●
|
