Tour Match: India 'A' v England XI at Jaipur, 27-29 Nov 2001 Samanth Subramanian & Santhosh S |
England XI 2nd innings:
India 'A' 2nd innings: |
It was Flintoff who struck first, with the seventh ball of the morning, when Yere Goud (13) was caught behind. Rashmi Ranjan Parida (13) was the next to go, trying to pull a short delivery from White and top-edging to Nasser Hussain. Ajay Ratra perished with the next delivery for a duck, cleaned up by White, who was on a hat-trick and also had five wickets in the bag.
Abhijit Kale, who batted brilliantly in the first innings, didn't do much in the second; he survived a loud and long shout for lbw by Flintoff but was soon caught by Mark Butcher off the bowling of Flintoff for just three. In the meanwhile, Reetinder Singh Sodhi, much renowned for his tenacity in the middle, took a severe blow on his wrist and had to go off the field retired hurt for nought; he did not return to bat again.
Skipper Sunil Joshi (13) hung around for a while and fell into a carefully laid trap, caught by Trescothick off Flintoff. Iqbal Siddiqui tried to celebrate his inclusion in the national squad with some attempted heavy blows, but to no avail. He was the last man to dismissed, caught behind off Richard Johnson for just one.
India 'A' thus set a target of 173 runs for a win, and England got off to a disastrous start, losing the important wicket of Butcher. Butcher played from the crease off Dodda Ganesh, the ball flying off the glove to Gautam Gambhir at forward short-leg who took a sharp reflex catch.
New batsman Hussain was involved in a controversial decision. He pulled a ball high to long-on where Siddiqui completed a good catch. But he threw the ball back in to avoid it being declared a six, as he was falling over the boundary line. The TV replays suggested that the catch had been taken and that fielder had full control over the ball. Umpires gave Hussain not out, much to the dismay of the fielders. At lunch, England were 22/1, with Hussain on seven and Trescothick on nine.
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Date-stamped : 29 Nov2001 - 18:35