Defiant Indians crush Kiwis to enter Tri-Series final

Colombo, August 2: India defeated New Zealand by seven wickets in the last league match here on Thursday to qualify for Sunday's tri-series final against hosts Sri Lanka.

Earlier, New Zealand unleashed their best batting performance in the tournament so far to notch up a huge 264 for seven in their allotted 50 overs.

Once again it was Nathan Astle who led the Kiwi charge, scoring a brilliant 108, his second century in the tournament, both of which have come against India.

New Zealand paced their innings beautifully preserving their wickets during the initial and middle overs and blasting the bowlers in the slog overs to set a daunting task for India of scoring at 5.3 runs an over.

The Indian bowlers floundered for the first time in this series with even Zaheer Khan and Harbhajan Singh being taken for a lot of runs. Ashish Nehra, who had figures of 3-30, and Yuvraj Singh (2-37) were the only bright spots. India conceded as many as 35 extras including 18 wides.

But it was really Astle and his second wicket stand of 138 with captain Stephen Fleming that laid the foundation for the highest total of the series so far.

With the winner going in to the final, the stakes were very high for both the teams and New Zealand batted perfectly to their plans.

The initial loss of opener Mathew Sinclair, who was caught by Hemang Badani off Zaheer Khan after making three runs from 21 balls, was shrugged off by Astle and Fleming who got back to the basics of the game.

Both of them avoided any risks and yet kept the scoreboard moving at a brisk rate. They found the gaps easily and ran hard between the wickets. Giving due respect to strike bowlers like Harbhajan Singh, the duo got after the non-regular bowlers like Virender Sehwag and Reetinder Singh Sodhi. Sehwag was taken for 26 runs off his three overs while Sodhi conceded 27 off his four.

Once Astle and Fleming were set, even the main bowlers were not spared as they stepped up the scoring after the 30th over.

After building a solid foundation, Fleming went on the attack, and treated every bowler with equal disdain. He was finally out to Yuvraj trying to go over the top. The ball touched his bat and pad and went to wicketkeeper Sameer Dighe who did a smart stumping. Fleming's 66 came 91 balls and contained seven boundaries.

New Zealand lost their vice-captain Craig McMillan soon after, caught by by Sodhi off Yuvraj, but the two dismissals could not restrict the run-flow.

New man Lou Vincent blasted 45 runs off just 37 balls and added 65 runs for the fourth wicket with Astle to bring New Zealand near to the 250-run mark. Vincent was in a punishing mood and hit three fours and two sixes in his knock.

Astle, the only centurion in this tournament, hit Zaheer for two successive boundaries in the 43rd over and a single off the next ball brought up his 11th one-day hundred.

He almost carried his bat through the innings, getting out in the 48th over when Sehwag caught him off the bowling of Zaheer Khan. His 143-ball knock contained nine hits to the fence.

Meanwhile, Vincent continued to heap miseries on the Indian bowlers lofting Yuvraj and Zaheer Khan for sixes. Nehra bowled him with the fourth ball of the last over, but he had already done the damage.