Indian Vice Captain Yuvraj Singh all round performance with bat, bowl and in the field help Indian team to crush the Pakistani’s in the third ODI at Kanpur by 46 runs to take 2-1 lead in five match ODI series.
After put in to bat by Pakistan Captain Shoiab Mallik, Indian started well and didn’t loose too many wickets at start. Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly, got away with some streaky edges and largely struggled against the pace of Shoaib Akhtar and Umar Gul. Indian got away with the help of some sloppy fielding by Pakistan fielders. On very first bowl of the match Kamran Akmal dropped Saurav Ganguly on the bowling of Shoiab Akhtar.
Both the opener put on 68 runs for the first wicket in the 10th over. Before Sachin Tendulkar (29 runs of 27 balls) got out by edging one to Kamran Akmal on the bowling of Shohail Tanveer. Three overs later Shohail Tanveer strikes again when he bowled Saurav Ganguly (39 runs of 46 balls).
Gautam Gambhir (25 runs of 49 balls) and Yuvraj Singh (77 runs of 95 balls) kept Indian score moving and put on 47 runs for the third wicket. Gautam Gambhir was little bit unlucky when he bowled out on 25 runs on the bowling of Abdur Rehman.
However M.S Dhoni (49 runs of 52 balls) with four 4’s and 2 sixes and Yuvraj Singh with 3 sixes and four 4’s played some blistering shot to help India impose a huge total of 294/6 in 50 overs.
Chasing a daunting total of 295 for victory Pakistan get up to flying start and put 72/1 in just 8th over. However in the process Pakistan lost Boom-Boom Afridi when he is bowled by Irfan Pathan. Inform Salman Butt kept his cool and kept pakista Score board ticking but not a single batsman spend time with him in the middle to help Pakistani’s to chase down 295 runs in 50 overs.
For Pakistan, the highlight of the day was Salman Butt’s sparkling innings of 129 runs from 142 balls studded with 17 fours. But it couldn’t translate into a win as Pakistan kept losing wickets at regular intervals. And in the end India bowled out Pakistan on 248/10 in 47.2 overs.
Yuvraj Singh was declared Man ofthe Match for his brilliant knock of 77 runs, 1 wicket and one run outs in the field.
