India win fourth ODI against England by 8 wkts

Kanpur, January 28: Virender Sehwag won Indian cricket’s latest ego battle by some distance as he outshone Sachin Tendulkar in the fourth one-day International at Kanpur on Monday. And India made sure they could not lose the six-match series by taking a 3-1 lead.

Fortunately, unlike some of the clashes of the past, this one is turning out to be destructive only as far as the opposing bowlers are concerned.

Poor Sourav Ganguly. He is hardly being missed. At Chennai, Anil Kumble led expertly in his absence and both in the third one-dayer and here again, Sehwag has filled the breach at the top in devastating fashion.

Ganguly in fact had bowled an incisive spell of medium pace, picking up two vital wickets before limping off with a recurrence of his hamstring injury. His figures at the stage read 5.1-0-17-2, both Michael Vaughan and Paul Collingwood playing atrocious shots to be bowled.

England’s score was 111 before they lost their second wicket, that of pinch-hitter Andy Flintoff. But five batsmen then followed each other back in a hurry for 55 runs and their final score of 218 for 7 from the reduced 39 overs was never going to be enough, despite opener Nick Knight’s 74 from 82 balls.

Knight and Marcus Trescothick gave England’s their best opening start of 72 runs from 11 overs as Ajit Agarkar went for runs from his first four overs.  

Javagal Srinath at the end conceded only 12 runs from his first five in a complete reversal of their figures at Chennai just a couple of days earlier.

Harbhajan Singh was carted for 11 from his first over, but came back strongly to finish with 2 for 40 from his quota of eight. That included Nasser Hussain caught and bowled for 15 as the captain once again threw away his wicket in the quest for quick runs.

The 100 came in just the 14th over before the Indian bowlers pegged things back with plenty of help from some indisciplined English batting.

The required run rate was made to look like a stroll in the park as Sehwag and Tendulkar cut loose. Both may have been lucky to have received the benefit of the doubt from the umpires. Tendulkar was given not out from the first ball he faced off a caught behind appeal off Darren Gough.

Commentators Ian Botham and David Gower could not agree among themselves — Botham as always was flying the flag while Gower felt the ball might have come off the pad.

When in the next over Sehwag survived a shout for lbw off Matthew Hoggard, there was not much doubt — except in the umpire’s mind.

Nothing went right for England in the field as the Indian openers carried on their terrific form from Chennai as they posted their second successive century-plus stand.

Sehwag matches his more illustrious partner shot for shot, and then some. He was the first to 50, from 36 balls with 10 fours as the 100 came up in the 12th over.

By the time the Delhi batsman was out for 82, the score was 134 and Tendulkar had yet to reach his own half-century.

But by then the result was a mere formality and India cantered home with 56 balls to spare.