A half century by skipper Andrew Flintoff saved England from a collapse on Monday, but left India with a modest victory target of 144 runs on the fifth and final day of the second cricket test.
In 35 minutes of batting before the lunch break, India reached 28 without losing any wicket.
Wasim Jaffer was not out 15 and Virender Sehwag not out 9. India needed another 116 runs to win in 63 overs.
PHOTO: AFP
Resuming at the overnight score of 112 runs for five wickets, England lost three quick wickets to India's rookie seamer Munaf Patel in the first hour of play.
Patel clean bowled Geraint Jones for five, trapped Liam Plunkett leg before for 1 and bowled Matthew Hoggard for four.
However, a 42-run ninth wicket partnership between Flintoff (51) and Stephen Harmison (13) saved England from further embarrassment.
England was bowled out for 181 runs in its second innings as Flintoff holed out to Munaf Patel at long leg off leg-spinner Piyush Chawla, his first test wicket on debut. Flintoff's 51 included five boundaries off 106 balls.
Captaining his side in the absence of Michael Vaughn, Flintoff scored 70 in England's first innings.
Leg-spinner Anil Kumble, who rattled England's top order on Sunday, claimed Harmison's wicket on Monday to finish four for 70 runs. He had reached the landmark of 500 wickets in his test career in England's first innings by claiming five wickets for 76 runs.
Patel claimed four wickets for 25 runs off 13 overs in England's second innings in his debut test.
England was tottering on 112 for five in its second innings at the close of fourth day's play on Sunday, just 74 runs ahead after deducting India's 38-run lead in the first innings.
Replying to England's first innings score of 300, India rode on a composed 95 from skipper Rahul Dravid to post 338.
Kumble's burst on Sunday brought the rain-hit test match back to life despite eight hours of play being lost to showers and bad light over the first two days.
The opening match of the three-test series ended in a draw in Nagpur last week.
The final test is to be played in Bombay from March 18.
Shane Bond took five wickets for 69 runs and captain Shivnarine Chanderpaul admitted his middle order "messed up" as the West Indies lost to New Zealand by 27 runs in the first cricket test at Eden Park.
Chasing 291 for victory, the tourists reached 148 without loss before crumbling to be all out for 263 Monday, flinching against an assault of Bond's fast swing bowling. The West Indies were 246 for eight at stumps on the fourth day and returned Monday for Bond and Daniel Vettori to remove tailenders Ian Bradshaw and Jerome Taylor.
Bond ended the match with a fast in-swinger which took the edge of Taylor's bat and cannoned onto his stumps, giving New Zealand a 1-0 lead in the three-test series.
Openers Daren Ganga, who made 95, and Chris Gayle, who made 82, laid the platform for a West Indies win, putting on 148 for the first wicket as the West Indies chased the highest innings total of the match.
New Zealand scored 275 and dismissed the tourists for 257 to take an 18-run first innings lead, then made 272 to leave the West Indies 291 to win with 6 1-2 sessions remaining.
TIGHT GAME: The Detroit Pistons, the NBA’s second-best team, barely outlasted the Washington Wizards, who fell to an NBA-worst 1-10 with their ninth consecutive loss Cade Cunningham’s triple double, Daniss Jenkins’ three-pointer at the buzzer and Javonte Green’s overtime dunk lifted Detroit past Washington 137-135 on Monday, stretching the Pistons’ win streak to seven games. In an unexpected thriller, the NBA’s second-best team barely outlasted a Wizards club that fell to an NBA-worst 1-10 with their ninth consecutive loss. “We knew how big this game was for us,” Jenkins said. “We wasn’t going to let nothing stop us from getting this W.” Cunningham made 14-of-45 shots and 16-of-18 free throws for a career-high 46 points, and added 12 rebounds, 11 assists, five steals and two
With a hat-trick on Wednesday, Victor Osimhen moved atop the UEFA Champions League scoring table, with the Nigeria striker netting all three goals in Galatasaray’s 3-0 victory over Ajax in Amsterdam. Osimhen moved to six goals this season in Europe’s elite club competition, one more than Harry Kane, Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland. The Istanbul club signed Osimhen to a permanent deal from SSC Napoli in the summer for a record transfer fee in the Turkish League reportedly worth US$86 million. The 26-year-old striker needed less than 20 minutes to complete his first hat-trick in the competition. He headed in the opener in the
An amateur soccer league organized by farmers, students and factory workers in rural China has unexpectedly drawn millions of fans and inspired big cities to form their own, raising hopes China can grow talent from the ground up and finally become a global force. The nation of 1.4 billion people has about 200 million soccer fans, more than any other country, but it has failed to build world-class teams, partly due to a top-down approach where clubs pick players from a very small pool of prescreened candidates. The professional game is marred by a history of fixed matches, corruption, and dismal performances,
Amanda Anisimova on Wednesday pulled off a stellar comeback to get the better of Iga Swiatek 6-7 (3/7), 6-4, 6-2 and book her spot in the last four of the WTA Finals in Riyadh, while Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei won in the doubles at the women’s year-ending event. Making her tournament debut this week, the fourth-seeded Anisimova secured the runner-up spot in the Serena Williams Group behind Elena Rybakina. Rybakina completed round-robin play with a perfect 3-0 record, thanks to a 6-4, 6-4 success against Russian alternate Ekaterina Alexandrova earlier in the day. Anisimova improved her three-set record this season to an impressive
RSS