Deadly Nehra gives India chance

DURBAN: Left-arm seamer Ashish Nehra bowled India to an 82-run Cricket World Cup victory over England yesterday, giving his team a golden chance to make the second round.

Passing a fitness test on his sprained ankle two hours before the start of play, Nehra produced his career-best spell of six for 23 as England were bowled out for 168 in 45.3 overs in response to India’s total of 250 for nine.

Nehra, 23, tore through England’s middle-order with a three-wicket burst in the space of 11 deliveries, having skipper Nasser Hussain and Alec Stewart caught behind and trapping Michael Vaughan leg before.

He went on to dismiss Paul Collingwood, Craig White and Ronnie Irani to finish with the third-best bowling performance in World Cup history.

Nehra’s figures rank behind West Indian Winston Davis’s seven for 24 against Australia in 1983 and Australian Gary Gilmour’s six for 14 against England in the 1975 semi-final.

It is marginally better than Sri Lankan seamer Chaminda Vaas’ haul of six for 25 against Bangladesh at Pietermaritzburg 12 days ago.

Nehra said he was delighted to make his mark in such a big match. “Definitely, especially in a match like this which was a really big one for us,” he said. “There was some  little bit of bounce in the wicket and I was just trying to bowl on a good line and length and it worked I think.”

India now have 16 points from five matches, taking the second spot behind Group “A” leaders Australia, which has 16 from four successive wins.

“The win here has probably given us a very good chance to qualify for the Super Six,” said Indian captain Sourav Ganguly. “So obviously the pressure is a bit less for us in terms of qualification. But that’s one big match we want to win.

“We will celebrate this victory because I thought it was a fantastic win under pressure. It was a big match for us because, if we had not won this one, Pakistan would have been a match to qualify and it would have made the group more open.” England, who were docked points for their refusal to play Zimbabwe in Harare, have 12 points from five matches going into their last group match against Australia on Sunday.

“You going to have to beat Australia at some stage to win this World Cup, so why not Sunday,” Hussain said.

Nehra, whose previous one-day best was three for 30, made his mark after opener Nick Knight was run out for one by Mohammad Kaif’s throw from mid-off and Marcus Trescothick fell on eight to a miscued pull off Zaheer Khan.

Part-time wicketkeeper Rahul Dravid snapped three catches and Virender Sehwag took two at second slip as Nehra bowled his 10 overs in a single spell. Towards the end he was extremely dehydrated, vomited on the field and twice went down on his knees in the last over.

Andrew Flintoff’s defiant 64 and his brisk 51-run partnership for the ninth wicket with Andrew Caddick, who remained unbeaten on 13, was the only feature of England’s batting. The burly Flintoff struck three huge sixes and five boundaries in his 73-ball knock.
Earlier, India lost four wickets off the last four deliveries to slump from a flying start.

Openers Sachin Tendulkar, who scored 50, and Sehwag smashed 60 runs off 66 deliveries. But an accurate England attack kept the Indian middle-order batsmen in check before Yuvraj Singh indulged in some big-hitting to break the shackles.

Singh scored 42 runs off 38 balls and shared a 62-run partnership for the fifth wicket with Dravid, who top-scored with a composed 72-ball 62.

Durban Scoreboard

ENGLAND VS INDIA
India Inns
V.Sehwag c & b Flintoff 23
S.Tendulkar c Collingwood b Flintoff  50
S.Ganguly c Trescothick b White 19
D.Mongia LBW b Collingwood 32
R.Dravid c Collingwood b Caddick  62
Y Singh c Hussain b Anderson 42
M.Kaif c Flintoff b Caddick 5
Harbhajan not out 0
Z.Khan run out 0
J.Srinath c Trescothick b Caddick 0
EXTRAS (B1, LB4, W9, NB3) 17
TOTAL (For nine wickets —- 50 overs) 250
Fall of wickets: 60, 91, 107, 155, 217, 250, 250, 250, 250.
Did not bat: A.Nehra.
BOWLING: Caddick 10-0-69-3, Anderson 10-0-61-1, Flintoff 10-2-15-2, White 10-0-57-1, Irani 6-0-28-0, Collingwood 4-0-15-1

England Inns
M.Trescothick c Tendulkar b Khan 8
N.Knight run out 1
M.Vaughan c Dravid b Nehra 20
N.Hussain c Dravid b Nehra 15
A.Stewart LBW b Nehra 0
P.Collingwood c Sehwag b Nehra 18
A.Flintoff c Sehwag b Srinath  64
C.White c Dravid b Nehra 13
R.Irani c Sehwag b Nehra 0
A.Caddick not out 13
J.Anderson LBW b Khan 2
EXTRAS (LB5, W7, NB2) 14
TOTAL (All out —- 45.3 overs) 168
Fall of wickets: 6, 18, 52, 52, 62, 93, 107, 107, 162.
BOWLING: Khan 9.3-1-29-2, Srinath 10-0-37-1, Nehra 10-2-23-6, Ganguly 6-0-34-0, Harbhajan Singh 10-0-40-0.
RESULT: India won by 82 runs.