Ruthless Australia enters the tri-series final

Australia have entered the finals of the Commonwealth Bank series after defeating India by 87 runs in the 10^th match of the tri-series at the Sydney Cricket Ground. The home side were again without their regular skipper, Michael Clarke, who opted
out due to injury. Shane Watson stood in as skipper on his comeback.

Australia won the toss and chose to bat first. Watson failed to make any impact with the bat and was first to go, scooping a catch to Umesh Yadav of Praveen Kumar. In-form Forrest, was bowled by Kumar having played on to his stumps at an individual score
of 7. Mike Hussey was the third to go with the score at 57/3. David Warner, along with David Hussey, added 50 runs for the fourth wicket before Warner was caught by Raina of the bowling of Ravindra Jadeja.

Meanwhile, David Hussey completed yet another half century before being caught behind by Mahinder Singh Dhoni off Yadav. Daniel Christian’s 24 and Xavier Doherty’s 9 helped Australia to 252-9 in their allotted 50 overs. Virendar Sehwag picked up three wickets
while Praveen Kumar and Umesh Yadav picked up two each. One wicket was taken by Jadeja while Mike Hussey was run out.

Once again, India made a poor start to their innings after Sehwag was caught & bowled by Ben Hilfenhaus for 5. Sachin Tendulkar was again looking good before retting run out for 14. Indian batting kept on collapsing with Ravichandran Ashwin becoming the
leading scorer with 26 runs. India were eventually bundled out for 165, also conceding a bonus point in the meantime.

Hilfenhaus, Watson and Doherty picked up two wickets each while Clint McKay and Christian picked up one apiece. No player from India was able to even score 30 with Gautam Gambhir and extras, the second highest scorer with 23.

India will next face Srilanka at Hobart and will need to win extremely comprehensively with the bonus point to have any chance of making it to the finals with Ausralia.

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Posted by Taha Habib on Feb 27 2012. Filed under Pakistan, Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry