Aug 22: Indian team shows a poor performance in the opening match of seven One-Day International series of NatWest Cup against England and lost the very first match in Southampton, England on Tuesday Aug 21, 2007. India fails to deliver a good recital from all fronts; however, in contrast England batsmen and bowlers did well to forget the Test series defeat and won the match convincingly in 104 runs.
Indian skipper Rahul Dravid after winning the toss asked England to bat first considering a swing condition of the pitch but that goes against his expectation as the bowlers fails to extract much from the pitch though maintain a good line and length by conceding only four wide balls in the innings.
However, all credit goes to England players as they both in batting and bowling performed well. Chasing a target of 289 runs Indian batsmen bundle out for only 184 runs in 50 overs. Unlike England its top order collapse without a single match saving partnership that made the big difference in the game. Among the bowlers it was James Anderson who forced Indian batsmen to follow a defensive approach and as a result he ended his spell by obtaining four crucial wickets in his 10-over spell at the cost of only 28 runs.
Coming back to the England batting they really batted well in the first fifteen overs though at one point the run rate was just over four but later gained momentum with some classy shots from opener Alastair Cook and Ian Bell. However, it was Matthew Prior the first wicket to go when the score there was only 43 runs on the board in the 11th over of the innings. Dravid was the man to catch the ball when Prior tried to drive the ball over the onside fielder of one of Zaheer’s delivery.
The match got interesting for England when Ian Bell joined Cook at the crucial phase of the match but they both pushed the score board by playing strokes all round the ground. Cook made great innings of 102 runs of 126 balls with the help of 8 boundaries before losing his stumps to RP Singh but till then they have already made the damage of Indian bowling attack.
Ian Bell with Petersen managed to maintain the run flow over five an over. Bell remains unbeaten at a career best of 126 and Kevin Petersen 33 and put a huge score of 288 for India to chase.
Though it looked achievable considering the wicket condition but fortune did not favour, as Sourav Ganguly (2) was the first wicket to fell when he was trying to steal a run, which was totally nonexistent. In the sixth over James Anderson did the trick when he got Gautam Gambhir caught behind by wicket keeper Prior. Disaster followed with the fall of wickets of Sachin Tendulkar (17) and Yuvraj Singh for a duck that pull down Indian to 34/4.
Dravid and Dhoni at one point tried to put some patches but Dhoni after a couple of characteristic stroke handed over his wicket to Andrew Flintoff. Dravid (46) was the next to go and at this point it was impossible to put any fight in the match. As the top order collapsed there was no logic to judge the tail-ender though Karthik (44 not out) and Zaheer (20) contributed some valuable runs. India at the end only scored 184 runs and got all out as wickets didn’t stop to fall till the last ball when Panesar bowled RP Singh.
Team India needs to take a hard look at their batting as there is no positive point for them to take out from this match. Also one can’t understand why our management always trying to put new opening pair in every match when both Gambhir and Karthik are in form. It will be always wise to put batsmen like those youngster to open as experienced ones in the middle order. Again there was no logic to put an opener Gambhir in the first down and a perfect number three batsman Rahul Dravid on the fourth.
Man of the Match: Ian Bell for his unbeaten 126 runs of 118 balls with the help of 10, 4’s and 1 six.
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