Virendar Sehwag punished Pakistan’s bowling with an aggressive hundred to lead India to a comfortable six-wicket win in the final Group B Asia Cup match on Thursday.
Sehwag smashed a 95-ball 119 and Suresh Raina hit a 68-ball 84 during their 198-run second wicket stand to help India overhaul Pakistan’s 299-4 with 7.5 overs to spare.
Earlier, Shoaib Malik hit his first century as captain to help Pakistan post a challenging target.
PHOTO: AP
However, it proved a cake walk for India, who were indebted to some lusty batting by Sehwag and Raina as the duo tore apart the home bowling which lost its bite after pace man Umar Gul broke down with a side strain.
Without Gul, who limped off in the third over, the Pakistani bowling looked a shadow of the side that beat India by 25 runs in the final of the tri-series held in Bangladesh earlier this month.
Sehwag hit five boundaries and five towering sixes in his ninth one-day century before he holed out at long-off with just 68 runs left. Yuvraj Singh, with a 47-ball 48, and Mahendra Singh Dhoni, with unbeaten 26, saw the home team through in the 43rd over.
PHOTO: AFP
Raina was as ruthless as Sehwag, hitting 10 boundaries and three sixes during his 69-ball innings, before he miscued a drive off pace man Rao Iftikhar and was caught in the covers. The duo took just 149 balls for their partnership.
Raina made his maiden hundred in India’s 256-run win over Hong Kong on Wednesday.
Both India and Pakistan reached the Super League stages of the tournament, but India carry two points into the next stage by virtue of this win.
The Super League starts today with India taking on Bangladesh.
Indian captain Dhoni said his batsmen clicked on “world’s flattest track.”
“It was a big total, but the wicket was very placid and there was nothing for the bowlers. We were quite optimistic about chasing and Pakistan lost Gul, and after that had not much to do,” Dhoni said.
Malik agreed the loss of Gul was a blow.
“A target of 300 was defendable and we could have defended that, but it was hard to come back after losing Gul,” Malik said.
Earlier, Malik added 90 for the opening wicket with Salman Butt (35) and another 129 for the second wicket with Younus Khan (59) to propel Pakistan, who won the toss and decided to bat.
Butt and Pakistan were slow off the mark, managing just 58 runs off the first 15 overs. Once Butt went, caught off leg-spinner Piyush Chawla in the 22nd over, Younus and Malik upped the tempo.
Malik reached his sixth century, third against India, in one-day internationals off 104 balls. His last one-day century came against India at Lahore two years ago.
The Indians were scrappy in the field as they let Malik off twice in one over from Yusuf Pathan, first when Chawla grassed one with the batsman on 116 and then Gautam Gambhir dropped him five runs later.
Malik finally retired hurt after suffering cramp in his leg. He hit 16 boundaries and a six during his 119-ball knock.
Younus followed him in the next over when he holed out off Yusuf in the deep. He hit five boundaries during his 60-ball knock.
“I don’t remember the moment, but ever since I was a kid, that’s the first thing I loved,” two-time NBA All-Star Isaiah Thomas said of his lifelong romance with basketball. However, that journey unfolded against the limitations of his size in a game where height often dictates opportunity — a reality he confronted throughout his career. At 175cm, Thomas is less than 2cm taller than the average Taiwanese adult male, while NBA players during his career stood at about 200cm on average. Compared with the NBA’s average career length of less than five years, Thomas’ 13-season career stands out as
Dakar and Rabat have longstanding ties, but relations have been strained since the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) final, which Senegal won in mid-January before being stripped of the title, which was transferred to Morocco. Now, the AFCON trophy is something of a thorn in the two countries’ sides. On Rue Mohamed V, the street where Moroccan vendors are based in the Senegalese capital, a police van is parked. “The police have been on high alert since the Confederation of African Football [CAF] decided to award the title to Morocco, but there have been no incidents,” a local resident said.
Top seeded Jessica Pegula on Friday once again fought back from a set down to reach the WTA Charleston Open semi-finals with a 3-6, 6-3, 6-2 win against Russia’s Diana Shnaider. Defending champion Pegula has lost the first set in all three of her matches at the tournament so far, but again dug deep to maintain her hopes of retaining the title. The world No. 5 from the US took 2 hours, 10 minutes to defeat 19th-ranked Shnaider, relying on a formidable service game that included eight aces. Shnaider battled well in the first two sets and broke early for a 2-0 lead
Cambridge on Saturday made it four wins in a row as they comprehensively defeated Oxford in the 171st University Boat Race on London’s River Thames. It was Cambridge’s seventh win in the past eight years of a rowing race between England’s two oldest universities first staged in 1829. A world-class Cambridge crew were heavy favorites for victory. However, four minutes into the race, the crews came close to a clash of oars which could have caused severe disruption, with Oxford repeatedly warned as both team chased faster conditions in the middle of the river. For the first time in the
RSS