Irani Proves To Be India's Undoing

India's winning run in the triangular one-day series ended in a rude shock when they suffered acomprehensive 64-run defeat to England in a rain-truncated league match at theOval.

It was a great fall for a side that came into the match with convincing victories in three of their four earliermatches - the other, against England, being abandoned due to rain.

Not only were India bowled out inside their quota of 32 overs, they also became the first side in the tournament toconcede a bonus point to the opposition.

The hero of the match was Ronnie Irani who came up with career-best batting and bowling performances to bag the man ofthe match award. After top-scoring with 53, his first one-day half-century, to power England to 229, Irani bowled a dreamspell of seven overs, claiming five wickets for 26 runs, to restrict India to 165 in 29.1overs.

His victims included India's top-scorer Virender Sehwag, who made a 41-ball 46 with eight fours and a six, and YuvrajSingh and Mohammad Kaif.

The victory is a big psychological boost for England as the two sides are to meet again in the final on Saturday.India have another league encounter left, against Sri Lanka on Thursday. 

India had won all their matches in this tournament while chasing a total and probably that is what prompted skipperSaurav Ganguly to elect to field even though the match had been reduced to 32 overs a side after rain had delayed thestart by more than four hours.

But Ganguly's calculations went totally awry as the Indians crumbled under pressure for the first time in thistournament. With the asking rate well over seven, nearly all the Indian batsmen were out while trying to accelerate thescoring.

The rut started with the captain himself who failed yet again. Ganguly (6) chased a wide delivery from Alex Tudor andgave a simple catch to Andrew Flintoff, who earlier in the day had made a scintillating 51 off just 38 balls, atfirst slip.

Virender Sehwag, under attack for throwing away his wicket, finally had a decent score to show as he blazed hisway into the forties before becoming the first victim of Irani.

It was actually the fall of Sehwag that turned the match in England's favour. With no Rahul Dravid around - the vice-captain having been replaced with Ajay Ratra after sustaininga hamstring injury - the task of holding the innings together fell on V.V.S.Laxman, who replaced Dinesh Mongia in the side and was playing his first match of the tournament.

Short of match-practice, and faced with an ever increasing required run-rate, Laxman found the going tough andwas out, caught by Matthew Hoggard off Paul Collingwood for 14, while attempting a big hit.

Even a Sachin Tendulkar was unable to have his way as English bowlers maintained a tight line and length. Withwickets falling from the other end, the master batsman was in a dilemma whether to attack or try to preserve his wicket tillthe end.

Initially, he tried to play it safe and build a partnership with players like Yuvraj Singh and MohammadKaif. But when everything failed, and the asking rate went above nine runs an over, Tendulkar decided to break free.

He hit a couple of boundaries but was unable to carry the innings through. He was the eighth man out, caught bywicketkeeper Alec Stewart off Mathew Hoggard, for 36 which came off 29 balls and contained five hits to the fence.

Meanwhile, Irani had wrecked havoc in the Indian middle order. Combined with Stewart, who took three catches andeffected a spectacular stumping of Yuvraj Singh, Irani broke the back of the Indian batting line-up with four quickwickets.

India were as good as defeated by the 25th over itself when they had crashed to 127 for nine. But Anil Kumble andAshish Nehra delayed the inevitable with a 38-run stand, the highest of the innings.

Nehra scored a career-best 24 off 19 balls while Kumble remained unbeaten on 21 but their efforts were not enough tosave India from going down.

Earlier, Flintoff and Irani put on a 76-run partnership for the third wicket to set the stage for a big total forEngland.

The duo came together following the quick dismissals of openers Marcus Trescothick (9) and Nick Knight (31) who hadgiven a flying start to England and carried the score to 148 for two before Flintoff, who scored his second half-century ofthe series, was dismissed by Ajit Agarkar.

Irani was associated in another fine partnership with Michael Vaughan, the two adding 48 for the fourth wicket.Vaughan made 30 off just 17 balls with two fours and a six.

 The Indians conceded as many as 30 extras, including 18 wides, which proved to be extremely costly in the end.

PTI