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India whips England as Nehra stars

England's Ronnie Irani, right, looks down after being bowled for a duck by India's Ashish Nehra, bottom, and caught by wicket keeper Rahul Dravid , top right, while Virender Sehwag, left, runs in during their World Cup Pool A match at Kingsmead stadium in Durban, South Africa, on Wednesday. India won the match by 82 runs. PHOTO: AP

Left-arm seamer Ashish Nehra bowled India to an 82-run World Cup victory over England, giving his team a golden chance to make the second round.

Passing a fitness test on his sprained ankle two hours before the start of play, on Wednesday, Nehra produced his career-best spell of six for 23 as England was bowled out for 168 in 45.3 overs in response to India's total of 250 for nine.

Nehra, aged 23, tore through England's middle-order with a three-wicket burst in the space of 11 deliveries, having skipper Nasser Hussain and Alec Stewart caught behind and trapping Michael Vaughan leg before.

He went on to dismiss Paul Collingwood, Craig White and Ronnie Irani to finish with the third-best bowling performance in World Cup history.

Nehra's figures rank behind West Indian Winston Davis's seven for 24 against Australia in 1983 and Australian Gary Gilmour's six for 14 against England in the 1975 semifinal.

It is marginally better than Sri Lankan seamer Chaminda Vaas' haul of six for 25 against Bangladesh at Pietermaritzburg 12 days ago.

Nehra said he was delighted to make his mark in such a big game.

``Definitely, especially in a game like this which was a really big game for us,'' he said. ``There was some a little bit of bounce in the wicket and I was just trying to bowl on a good line and length and it worked I think.''

India now has 16 points from five matches, taking the second spot behind Group A leader Australia, which has 16 from four successive wins.

``The win here has probably given us a very good chance to qualify for the Super Six,'' said Indian captain Sourav Ganguly. ``So obviously the pressure is a bit less for us in terms of qualification. But that's one big game we want to win.

``We will celebrate this victory because I thought it was a fantastic win under pressure. It was a big game for us because, if we had not won this game, Pakistan would have been a game to qualify and it would have made the group more open.''

England, which was docked points for its refusal to play Zimbabwe in Harare, has 12 points from five matches going into its last group match against Australia on Sunday.

``You going to have to beat Australia at some stage to win this World Cup, so why not Sunday,'' Hussain said.

``Obviously it was our turn to be on the other side of the equation,'' he said in reference to losing the toss and having to bat second in conditions that suited Nehra and the other seam bowlers.

``To bat under lights was difficult. Full credit to the Indians, they did their disciplines very well.''

Nehra, whose previous one-day best was three for 30, made his mark after opener Nick Knight was run out for one by Mohammad Kaif's throw from mid-off and Marcus Trescothick fell on eight to a miscued pull off Zaheer Khan.

Earlier, India lost four wickets off the last four deliveries to slump from a flying start.
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