Saturday 27 August 2011

Denly ton not enough to stop India


Joe Denly's swashbuckling century was not enough for Kent as India landed a tight five-run win in Friday's rain-reduced tour match at the St Lawrence Ground.
                                                            Kohli - match-winning knock.
                                                         Kohli - match-winning knock.
With Mum Nature's sodden mood reducing the match from 50 overs per side to a mere 20 each, the home side's choice to bowl first soon had them chasing leather.
While Parthiv Patel and Rahul Dravid failed at the top of the knock, young guns Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli held the middle overs together.
Kohli and Sharma fetched a half-century each in Thursday's win over Sussex and again stepped to the fore with 78 and 30 respectively. The right-handed Kohli planked all of seven fours and a trio of sixes across his 53-ball cameo and Ravichandran Ashwin added some belated impetus toward the tail of the innings with a quickfire 23 not out.
Spinner James Tredwell, left out of England's squad for the upcoming ODI series, afforded the selectors some food for thought with fine figures of two for 18 in three overs, including they key scalps of Suresh Raina and Mahendra Dhoni.
In reply, former England opener Denly was desperate to diminish and asking rate of 8.22 per over from the get-go.
His valiance, however, found little support as the rest of the top- through middle-order floundered under the pressure.
RP Singh, fresh from his four-for against Sussex, added a further two victims to his tour-match tally. When he bowled Denly for 100 from 68 balls, eight fours and three sixes included, it was all over bar the shouting for the hosts.
While two rain-hit matches on the trot are far from ideal for India's preparation ahead of their five-match ODI series against Alastair Cook's men, consecutive triumphs have gone a long way in healing the wounds left by the four-nil Test series drubbing by Andrew Strauss and company.

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