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India vs England - 1st ODI, Delhi 2006.Filed under
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One Day before the match
Lets get this straight - England is a struggling one day side while Indian team is playing some very good one day cricket in recent past. Now the one day series of 7 matches start at Delhi and it will be no wrong in saying that England team will be the underdogs (They even lost to RCA XI in the warm-up match at Jaipur) England did very well by winning the third test at Mumbai and leveled the test series but ODI cricket is very different game and England is yet to match the standard that India have achieved in last one year or so... The ground records of Ferozshah Kotla ground in Delhi has seen just one score over 300 - 303/8 made by Pakistan and that was the last match played on Kotla ground. Ferozshah Kotla is relatively small ground so one can expect big hits. Summer season is just starting in India and hence Light factor may not affect this One day match between India and England at Ferozshah Kotla. Virendra Sehwag, struggling with back injury has finally been cleared to play in this match as he passed the fitness test on Sunday and again in Monday. If you are interested in knowing more about the Ferozshah kotla ground in Delhi, try this and this. But if you are interested in the records that were made at this ground over the years - I suggest you this. Tuesday, 28th of March - 2006 Indian Innings The Australian attitude is to attack at all cost. Even when they lose wickets, they keep on attacking the ball and try to score freely, while over the years, Indian way has been to make sure you don't get out and then play the best possible shot... There are just three Australians attached to Indian cricket - coach Greg Chappell, Physio John Gloster and assistant Ian Frazer  as
compared with 1 billion Indians but our cricket team seems to be
playing with their attitude - The Australian Attitude.
The Ferozshah Kotla Pitch for this first one day international between India and England at Delhi had everything for the bowlers - Swing, Seaming conditions, good bounce, grass and would you believe - it also had quite a bit of spin. England fast bowlers bowled well to get the first four Indian wickets very cheaply and when Dravid got out as the fifth wicket - ball from Liam Plunkett came in sharply to bowled Dravid, everyone expected Mahendra Singh Dhoni to come out and blast the English attack... But as Indian team has been giving at least one surprise in batting order in nearly every ODI of late - they sent in Irfan Pathan and held back Dhoni. The Commentator - Javagal Srinath kept on asking "why Irfan came to bat before Dhoni" again and again  even when Irfan
made a good partnership with Suresh Raina. They kept on hitting the bad
balls to the boundary and made a quick partnership of 58 runs..
Mahandra Singh Dhoni is the brightest star in the sky of Indian cricket right now and everyone expects him to play a masterful innings every time. The Reason behind the decision of team managment to send Irfan Pathan before Dhoni could be that Dravid got out in the 20th over of the match and the ball was still swinging. Its known fact that Irfan Pathan has a better and compact defence than Dhoni who tries to play every ball with his bat. At that moment, it was important that few balls be left alone as England were getting the wickets easily... There were still 30 overs remaining in the match and Dhoni had enough time to get settled later on when the ball would get older..This has happened before as well when Dhoni was sent at No. 8 in the fourth ODI against South Africa at Kolkata. But even when Suresh Raina and Irfan Pathan got out at the same time after a good partnership of 58 and the score being 146 for 7 wickets in this first one dayer at Delhi, India had quite a bit of batting to do. The surprise came in the form of Harbhajan Singh. Delhi is a small ground and that prompted Harbhjan Singh to play his shots and he ended up making 37 runs off 46 balls. At one time in this first ODI at Delhi, Harbhajan was the dominant partner and he denied Dhoni the strike. Harbhajan hit Plunkett for a huge six over the long on boundary and overshadowed Dhoni with his unusual batting display... Harbhajan Top Scored for India in the first One day International at Ferozshah Kotla against England and Indian played 20 balls less in their batting innings!!
England Innings. The first over from Irfan Pathan read - 0 0 W 0 4 W. This set the tone for the Indians and the started to believe that they could win the Delhi ODI. What happened next in England innings was some typical one day batting display from England - Specially from  Kevin Pietersen who, in his typical manner, came
down the pitch to both Irfan Pathan and S Sreesanth again and again and
kept on hitting them to the mid wicket boundary. This was the first One
day that Pietersen was playing again India and his batting style was
very unusual for the Indians to handle. After the fall of third wicket
- Matt Prior at 57, captain Andew Flintoff came to the wicket and he
with Kevin Pietersen started taking the match away from India. England
were chasing just 204 for victory and till the 20th over, they had made
117 runs with required run rate going down to 3 per over. Then Kevin Pietersen hit one full toss from Harbhajan to Gautam Gambhir at deep mid-wicket and Flintoff was caught straight in front of wicket off the bowling of Yuvraj Singh. The Score board read - 117 for 5 in 20.4 overs. After that, English batsmen had no answer to Indian spin duo of Harbhajan Singh and Yuvraj Singh - the only shot they had was the sweep shot and probably that why, 5 England batsmen were out playing the sweep shots. Harbhajan took 4 wickets in his last 6 over and gave away just 9 runs.... and with Yuvraj maintaining a nagging line outside leg stump and not giving any run away, England bundled out for just 164 runs in just 38.1 overs..
Important notes from the first India vs England ODI at Delhi 1) There has been 14 completed one day matches at Ferozshah Kotla ground and now 7 has been won by team batting first as well as second... Good record isn't it. Have you ever wondered how many one day matches between Indian and England has been played so far and who has won and how many?? Well, one more thing equalled in this one dayer - So far, 52 ODI has been played between India and England and now the score reads - 25 each with two producing no result!! 2) This was the 9th time that Yuvraj bowled his full quota of 10 over in a one day International and his figures were - 10-2-32-2.  3) Harbhajan Singh top scored for India in this one day match and made his third highest score in ODI cricket. His best has been 46 and this was his third highest... but he bowled even better to get his best figures in ODI cricket of 10-2-31-5. This was the second time Harbjahan picked up 5 wicket haul in a one day international. 4) The Ferozshah Kotla pitch had few devils in it so I feel obliged to tell you that it was made by Dalgit Singh - the official curator of Mohali cricket ground and the outfield was made up of the grass that is used in Golf ground.... Specially imported from United States of America!! 5) How many cricketers do you know who does prayers before coming out on a cricket field. Well, Indian medium pacer - S Sreesanth does that every time he goes out to bowl. You can see a "Red Teeka" on his forehead like a devoted man coming out of a Temple and whats more, there were rumours of Sreesanth changing the spelling of his name. It was that he was changing his name to Sreesunth or Sreeshanth or something like that.... Whatever, this boy bowls well and I don't care what superstition he carries with him as long as he keeps bowling as he doing these days!! Here is more about the current India vs England one day series. Related ArticlesArticle
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