Date-stamped : 03 Nov93 - 05:15 England in India, ODI 1, Jaipur 18 Jan 1993 : Summarised Match Reports Indian Innings: (at 139/3) First ODI between India and England has started in Jaypur. England has won the toss and put India into bat. After 38 overs India are 139-3. Kambli 72 and SRT 29 are batting. In- dia lost Sidhu very quicky but M. Prabhakar scored a quick 25 of 29 balls. First two wickets were taken by Paul Jarvis. After that Kambli and Azar tried to bring the Indian innings back on to the track, but were bogged down by the English attack. At the fall of Azars wicket (6 of 26) it looked like another sad story. But two youngsters from Shardashram/B'bay took the challange and are now all set to take the English balling apart in the slogg overs. Kambli was initially very slow scoring 25/30 in 65 odd deliveries but once SRT joined him, he started to attack. SRT was happy to take a supportive role. Both the batsman are trying to take ones and twos with an odd boundary from Kambli. (Closure of innings) Kambli went on to score a hundred on his 21st birthday, although he was lucky to be dropped on 8 by Hick off Jarvis. Tendulkar's was probably the best innings as he never seemed likely to get out and paced it perfectly, pick- ing up 1's and 2's early on and then hitting out to superb effect towards the end. The pair put on 164 runs. The best England bowler was probably Lewis (1-26 off 9). They all bowled reason- ably well and fielded well except Emburey who went for 6 an over. England Innings: England seemed to be just about on course for most of the innings but once Stewart was 4th man out the match kept swaying one way and then the other. India seemed to bowl quite well and, like England, fielded well. As for the batting, Gooch and Smith seemed out of touch. Stewart scored a good 91, with Gatting also con- tributing well. Stewart and Fairbrother batted fluently, Fairbrother's 47 coming off 40 balls. With only 2 overs to go, however,19 runs were still needed. Pri- or to this, Kapil had bowled an excellent over, in which only 3 runs came, and England lost a wicket; a good over from Prabhakar soon followed. The situation seemed lost to England. However, In the penultimate over, bowled by Kapil, 13 runs came to leave England the very realistic target of 6 runs from 6 balls. The story of that nail-biting last over is as follows: ball - 1, Fairbrother missed the delivery ball - 2, A comfortable single to Fairbrother; kept to a sin- gle by a fine pickup and throw by Anil Kumble ball - 3, A single to Lewis, Fairbrother was home at the danger end. ball - 4, A single to Fairbrother, Azhar missed the non striker end, from just under 6 feet, all three stumps smiling. ball - 5, Lewis missed the ball, crossing over at any cost. Yadav's turn to miss the stumps, at the striker's end. The ball reached Prabhakar with Lewis miles away from the crease. Pr- abhakar wild shy at the stumps, Ofcourse it missed - Overthrow! - Lewis gets 2. ball - 6 A single to Lewis and that's it! Overall, the two teams were very evenly matched but as always someone had to win. After their woeful performances so far on this tour it represented a considerable improvement for England. In summarising, Jon Agnew on Radio 5 felt that the Indian total had been about 15 runs short of that required to win. While both Kambli and Tendulkar batted very well for their unbroken 4th wicket stand (of 164), Jon Agnew was of the impression that they accelerated too late and that was where the game was lost (Compiled by CP from posts by Rob, Atul & Mark Trayer. Sent in by cric8. A team effort :-) Contributed by The Management (help@cricinfo.com) The Guardian 19 January 1993 - England take lead from revived Fairbrother - David Hopps in Jaipur. First one-day international: India v England Whereever Graham Gooch has travelled in India, he has been fol- lowed by one insistent question: ''Excuse me, sir, but can you tell me why you have not brought Mr Gower?'' Gooch has met each innocent inquiry with an impassive counte- nance. Yesterday, in front of a capacity crowd at the Sawai Man Singh stadium, Neil Fairbrother, the batsman preferred, chose the first of six limited-overs internationals to formulate an answer. Fairbrother's unbeaten 46, off 40 deliveries, was not his best one-day innings for England. Indeed, at times it survived on lit- tle more than a whim and a prayer. But it was a vital component in a four-wicket victory that was achieved off the last available ball of the match. Before this game Fairbrother had scratched and scraped his way towards oblivion, barely managing to get the ball off the square. Had England needed to score at four an over he might have been stricken by anxiety, but the rate lurched above eight and, not for the first time, a hint of desperation was the making of him. When Fairbrother enters an adrenalin surge, he leaves his pho- bias behind. The loss of Alec Stewart, for a discerning 91, left England 80 runs short of the 224 required for victory with fewer than 12 overs remaining. It merely served to spur the Lancastrian into action. When he advanced down the pitch to drive Kapil Dev, it was the first time he had opened his shoulders since leaving Gatwick. Kumble's leg-spin was swept over midwicket for six, Srinath was flat-batted over his head and deliberately poked through the va- cant slips. Gower would have made it look much prettier but these days one-day cricket rarely stirs him. Kapil had threatened mastery. Gooch, labouring for four off 25 balls as his footwork rarely functioned, had fallen leg before, playing across his front pad. Immediately Kapil returned for a second spell, Stewart's impeccably paced innings ended with an attempted cut that reached the wicketkeeper, Yadav, via the bot- tom edge. With England 19 short entering the last two overs the odds slightly favoured India, but Fairbrother contrived two legside boundaries with outrageous improvisation. The old fox Prabhakar hit the blockhole unerringly in the final over but England escaped with the six runs they needed. Fair- brother would have been run out had Azharuddin hit from extra cover. Then he should have been run out again, stealing a bye to the wicketkeeper; instead Yadav's shy rolled through to the bowler's end and Prabhakar conceded an overthrow as he tried to run out Lewis. With the scores level Lewis's leg bye from the fi- nal ball saw England through. Jaipur is the sweet painted lady of Indian grounds, adorned with reds, greens and pinks and, on this occasion, perhaps with a tear running down its make-up. Behind a vibrant crowd of 25,000 (many thousands had been turned away) stood two silent sentinels: the Tiger Fort, on a rocky outcrop eight miles to the north, and, much closer to the east, the magnificent Moti Dungri palace. Stewart's temperance, disturbed only when he twice struck Raju's left-arm spin for six, drew the heat from a match that might have been spirited away by the Bombay pair of Kambli and Tendulkar, who swept India from uncertain beginnings to 223 for three in 48 overs. Their unbroken stand of 164 in 28 overs burst with ebullience on a firm, reliable pitch. It had its origins in complete trust and understanding in their running between the wickets; it climaxed with Kambli's first one-day century, on his 21st birthday. It was apt that Tendulkar, a close friend since schooldays, should be first to proffer a congratulatory handshake. Tendulkar finished unbeaten on 82 off 81 balls. Throughout they chattered instructions and encouragement to each other in Marathi - Kambli the offside dasher, Tendulkar a more complete player and, yesterday, devastating through mid-on. In his exhaustion at reaching his century Kambli immediately pulled a hamstring and is doubtful for the second match in Chan- digarh tomorrow. As he had just taken the pot off his bruised forearm, it was cruel luck. Kambli did not come out to field, which in the circumstances was a bit rich. England bowled well at him for the first half of the innings, restricting his dashing offside drives to a minimum. Lewis bowled particularly straight and Reeve's presence of mind guided him through a potential minefield. Jarvis is also full of himself and might have had four wickets in his first six overs, being particularly ill-served when Hick dropped a moderate knee-high chance at first slip when Kambli was eight. At times Jarvis brought the ball back sharply. His second ball yorked Sidhu for a duck (Emburey, freed from the fear of another frenzy of sixes, was among the first to embrace him). Prabhakar had already survived one close call when he left a ball that struck his off-stump. Azharuddin can do nothing right. The Indian captain sweated 28 balls over six before wandering across his stumps to fall leg- before to Lewis. The nature of the finish must have convinced him that even his gods are against him. Contributed by The Management (help@cricinfo.com)