When India posted 374 runs on the board with the help of brilliant century by their captain M.S. Dhoni and Suresh Raina the match was almost in the bag of Indians. The results which are know to everyone even before the start of the game and it was no surprise that Indians able to thrashed the minnows Honk Kong by 256 runs.
Piyush Chawla who claimed his career best figure of 4/23 did the rest of the job to help India to bowl out the Hong Kong for 118 runs in 36.5 overs. Hong Kong was never in the hunt chasing a huge target of 375 runs for victory and they kept on loosing wickets at regular interval except for the 2nd wicket partnership they put on 45 runs. Tabarak Dar (21 runs of 37 balls), James Atkinson (23 runs of 46 balls), Irfan Ahmed (25) and Roy Lamsan (16) are the only Hong Kong batsman who spent some time in the middle to minimize their margin of defeats.
Earlier Indian captain M.S.Dhoni won the toss and decided to bat first on a beautiful batting wicket. Indian openers continued their good form as they put on 127 runs in just 14.3 overs. Virendra Sehwag (78 runs of 44 balls) departed in the 15th over which did slow down the Indian run rates but Gautam Gambhir (51 runs of 54 balls) continued to put bad balls to boundary as he reached his fifty in just 51 balls.
In the able company of his Delhi teammate Gambhir, the Nawab of Najafgarh brought up his 28th ODI half-century in no time at all, as he helped shoot up India’s score to 100 in just the 11th over of the match.
It was Najeeb Amar who gave much needed breakthrough for his team when he picked up Virendra Sehwag in 15th over. Four over slated he struck again when he send Delhi dashing left hander back to the pavilion. Rohit Sharma also didn’t lasted longer as he was run out brilliantly by Nadeem Ahmed.
But it was Suresh Raina and M. S. Dhoni who gave India sustainability at the wickets as both went on to score a magnificent hundred. This was Raina maiden century in ODI his previous best were 81*. Both went on to put 166 runs for the 4th wicket before Raina got out on 101 runs of 68 balls in trying to up the tempo at the depth overs.
After S.Raina dismissal, Ms.Dhoni eventually started to blast each and every delivery all around the park to complete his 4th hundred.He remained unbeaten on 109 off 96 balls, hitting six fours and and equal number of sixes.
