Team India gear up for series whitewash

England will be desperate to avoid a second successive series whitewash in India, when they take on the Men in Blue in the fifth and final one-dayer at the Eden Gardens on Tuesday.
Having come nowhere near beating the Indians in the four matches thus far, the England players who seem to running out of ideas, will have one final crack at the world champions, in an effort to end the tour with a victory to their name.

It was the same old story for the visitors in the fourth ODI at Mumbai, as the English team failed to put up a competitive total, and was blown away by six wickets with almost ten overs to spare.
England once again failed to provide the finishing touches to their innings, and was bowled out for 220 in 46.1 overs.
Apart from some of the self inflicted wounds, England have also been caught on the wrong foot by some fiery bowling by, what could be described as the next generation of Indian pacers.
After sitting out the first three matches of the ongoing series, Varun Aaron, well and truly announced himself on the big stage by castling three lower order batsmen, to bring an abrupt end to the England innings.
Even though it’s still early days to go overboard with Aaron, he could just turn out to be the ideal weapon to polish off the opposition tail.
Playing at home, the Indian batsmen seem have rediscovered themselves, and the situation was no different at Mumbai on Sunday.

 

 Virat Kohli once again steered Team India’s chase, as he finished with unbeaten innings of 86, and Suresh Raina more than played his part with a score of 80 from 62 balls.
England on their part seem to have completely lost the plot in conditions which have not quite suited their style of play.
Their batting has proved to be insipid and their bowling toothless; Tim Bresnan, batting at number eight was the highest scorer in the Mumbai clash with a run a ball 45.
Although Steve Finn continues to impress with his pace and bounce, the rest of the bowlers have consistently misfired, which have allowed the Indians to recover time after time, after the loss of early wickets.
Memories of the 5-0 hammering during the 2008 tour must already be doing the rounds on the minds of many of the England players, and it would take a brave man to bet in favour of the Poms preventing back to back whitewashes in India.

India vs England 5th ODI cricket match: Preview

The fourth match was again a hands down win for India.

It is amazing that when Indian batsmen are able to bat well against English bowlers, why English batsmen have consistently failed to score runs. They have shown their weakness against spin bowling, but Indian pacers have also done better than ‘world class’ pace bowling attack of the English bowlers.
Indian captain MS Dhoni is on cloud nine with the prospects of his side winning the series 5-0. “We wanted to win 5-0 in England, but we couldn’t. It’s not always just what you want – you have to play well. We’ll try to win it 5-0. But the main motivation is just to go out there and play good cricket”, says Dhoni.
Alastair Cook on the other hand is on the defensive. “There is always that balance, as we know, and part of our responsibility as a side is to get that. Sometimes on this tour, we might not have always got that balance – but I didn’t see too much wrong this time”, says he.
Team India: 1 Gautam Gambhir, 2 Ajinkya Rahane, 3 Virat Kohli, 4 Suresh Raina, 5 Manoj Tiwary, 6 MS Dhoni (capt & wk), 7 Ravindra Jadeja, 8 R Ashwin, 9 Praveen Kumar, 10 Vinay Kumar, 11 Varun Aaron
Team England: 1 Alastair Cook (capt), 2 Craig Kieswetter (wk), 3 Jonathan Trott, 4 Kevin Pietersen, 5 Ian Bell, 6 Ravi Bopara, 7 Samit Patel, 8 Tim Bresnan, 9 Graeme Swann, 10 Stuart Meaker, 11 Steven Finn.

CLT20: Last-ball six takes RCB into semis

Royal Challengers Bangalore scripted a dramatic entry into the semi-finals of the CLT20 when Arun Karthik hit a six off the last ball while chasing a mammoth 215 set by South Australia Redbacks here at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium on Wednesday.
The tormentors-in-chief for the Redbacks, though, were Virat Kohli (70) and Tillakaratne Dilshan (74) who put on a 100-run partnership after a not-out century from Daniel Harris (108) had propelled the visitors to a mammoth total.

 

In a roller-coaster match, Dilshan and Chris Gayle gave the hosts the best possible start, adding 65 runs off the first 6.1overs befre Gayle fell to Daniel Christian, but the steepler caused Redbacks captain Michael Klinger and Tom Cooper to collide even though Klinger held on to the catch.
Dilshan continued with Kohli and the pair pummeled the Redbacks' attack to all corners of the park for a 100-run partnership within nine overs before Kohli became Shaun Tait's first victim for 70. Kohli faced 36 balls and hit four boundaries and hity six sixes out of the park.
Dilshan continued on the quest, but the wickets kept tumbling around him as Shaun Tait found his radar, and dismissed Saurabh Tiwary, followed by the in-form Dilshan (74) with 15 runs still needed off 11 balls.
Tait was not finished, and he also got rid of Daniel Vettori and Raju Bhatkal in the 19th over to finish with 5/32 and give the South Australian team hope to still salvage a victory.
However, Sreenath Aravind made up for his woeful bowling by scooping a four over the wicketkeeper, running a bye and Arun Karthik hit the winning six off the final ball to see the Redbacks crashing out of the competition.
Earlier electing to bat, the Australian outfit made a mockery of the hapless RCB bowlers to post the highest total in the tournament. The Redbacks have four points and need a victory to take the top slot.
The last six overs produced 92 runs with Sreenath Aravind being hit for 69 runs in his four over spell. The manner in which the left-arm seamer was hit all over the park may seriously dent his chances of making it to the playing XI against England.
For the Australian side, Harris was the star of the innings.
The right hander took charge from the word go with his audacious strokes that stunned the RCB bowlers. His magnificent innings was laced with 17 hits to the fence and two sixes one of which was the one which helped him reach his maiden T20 ton.
Ferguson was equally brilliant at the other end, scoring a 43-ball 70, studded with four boundaries and three sixes.
After losing skipper Michael Klinger (7), Harris joined hands with Ferguson as the second wicket pair stitched a belligerent century partnership of 114 runs coming off only 75 balls.
Harris showed no respect to RCB's left arm seamer Dirk Nannes, hitting him for four consecutive boundaries taking 18 runs in the process. He was particularly severe on Arvind, creaming 28 runs in two overs.
For RCB, Syed Mohammad and Rajoo Bhatkal claimed a wicket apiece.