Thaindian News

London, Sep 10 (IANS) England scraped to a three-wicket victory over India in the third One-day International and took an unassailable 2-0 lead in the NatWest Series here.

It was a close finish for the hosts Friday after Indian spinners–Ravichandran Ashwin (3-40) and Ravindra Jadeja (2-42) — made them wobble by extracting spin and bounce from the track. But a sixth-wicket 60-run between Ravi Bopara (40) and Tim Bresnan revived England from a precarious 133 for five and put them close to their revised target of 218 from 43 overs following a one hour rain break.

Graeme Swann (9 not out) along with Stuart Broad took his side home. Swann hit a boundary to level the scores and followed it by a single to complete his side’s victory under the Duckworth-Lewis method.

England triumphed 4-0 in the test series, won the sole Twenty20 match and now lead 2-0 with two one-dayers left.

The hosts, choosing to field, quickly reduced India to 58/5 before skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Jadeja steered their side to a fighting 234 for seven after James Anderson ripped through the visitors’ top-order.

India lost half their side for 58 but Dhoni (69) and Jadeja (78) forged a 112-run stand for the sixth wicket to save the embarrassment for a team looking for its first win on the tour. Ashwin smashed 36 off 19 balls towards the end as India collected 60 runs from the last five overs.

Anderson thrives when the ball is swinging and the green-looking Oval pitch, combined with overcast conditions, provided him the opportunity of testing the makeshift opening pair of Parthiv Patel (3) and Ajinkya Rahane (0).

Both had been amongst the runs in the previous games but were found wanting against the swinging ball.

Rahane departed in the first over of the match as he edged an away going Anderson delivery to first slip where Jonathan Trott did the rest. The four-ball duck was Rahane’s first failure on the tour.

A Rahul Dravid (2) run out in the fifth over did not help the cause and the dismissals of Patel and Virat Kohli (7) soon after, left India reeling at 25 for four in 10.2 overs.

Suresh Raina (21) was out to a bad shot and the Indian batting collapse looked very much on the cards with score being 58 for five in 19 overs.

But Jadeja and Dhoni steadied the ship and batted for the next 25 overs to give India a chance in the match.

Jadeja, playing his first match of the tour, struck 10 fours in his 89-ball knock while Dhoni hit five boundaries in what was a very patient innings.