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New Delhi: India survived a Dutch scare to win a low-scoring Feroz Shah Kotla match by five wickets on Wednesday as Yuvraj Singh scored yet another half century to seal the deal.
After bundling out the Oranges for a paltry 189 runs, India came on to the field all set to wrap the Kotla carnival with a high run rate.
But plans to end the show early hit a bump as they lost Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar and Yusuf Pathan in quick succession. The batsmen where going all out on Dutch bowlers when orthodox spinner Pieter Seelaar came out with a stunning show to scalp the biggies.
After losing the top order, Bengaluru Man-of-the-Match Yuvraj Singh and skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni guided India home to a win in front of 30,000 cheering fans.
Given a life by Eric Szwarczynski in the fourth over of the match by Mudassar Bukhari, an eager Sehwag smashed five fours and two sixes before went down to Seelaar while on 39.
Sachin Tendulkar became the first batsman to score 2,000 World Cup runs, reaching the mark by hitting three consecutive fours in front of legions of fans in New Delhi, before falling trying to work Seelaar for a big hit.
Seelaar struck again in the same over by taking off the big hitting Yusuf Pathan with a caught and bowled softy.
Despite losing out wickets, India looked set for a comfortable win at this point with 82 runs on board. Virat Kohli and Gautam Gambhir were handed the task of stabilising the innings.
India were cruising well when Kohli completely missed to read the line of a fuller from Peter Borren and let it pass his bat to the stumps.
Yuvi joined Gambhir in the attack but the latter soon departed after Mudassar Bukhari dug out his leg stump.
The placid pitch had little juice in the offering for pacers and was reported to slow down more in the second innings. Earlier, India relied on a pace-spin combination to bowl out the Netherlands for a below-par 189.
Spinners Piyush Chawla and Yuvraj Singh shared four wickets while fast bowler Zaheer Khan grabbed 3-20 after Dutch captain Peter Borren elected to bat.
Netherlands:
E. Szwarczynski b Chawla 28
W. Barresi lbw b Yuvraj 26
T. Cooper c Dhoni b Nehra 29
R. ten Doeschate c Zaheer b Yuvraj 11
A. Kervezee c Harbhajan b Chawla 11
B. Zuiderent lbw b Zaheer 0
T. de Grooth run out 5
P. Borren c Nehra b Zaheer 38
B. Kruger run out 8
Mudassar Bukhari b Zaheer 21
P. Seelaar not out 0
Extras: (b6, lb3, w2, nb1) 12, Total (all out; 46.4 overs) 189
Bowling: Zaheer 6.4-0-20-3, Nehra 5-1-22-1, Pathan 6-1-17-0, Harbhajan 10-0-31-0 (w2), Chawla 10-0-47-2 (nb1), Yuvraj 9-1-43-2.
India:
V. Sehwag c Kervezee b Seelaar 39
S. Tendulkar c Kruger b Seelaar 27
Y. Pathan c and b Seelaar 11
G. Gambhir b Bukhari 28
V. Kohli b Borren 12
Yuvraj Singh not out 51
MS Dhoni not out 19
Extras: (w4) 4, Total (for five wickets; 36.3 overs) 191
Bowling: Bukhari 6-1-33-1 (w2), ten Doeschate 7-0-38-0 (w2), Seelaar 10-1-53-3, Borren 8-0-33-1, Cooper 2-0-11-0, Kruger 3.3-0-23-0.
NEW DELHI: Sachin Tendulkar became the first batsman to reach 2,000 runs in World Cup matches as he passed the 18 runs required in double quick time to reach the milestone as India won their Group B ICC Cricket World cup match at the Feroz Shah Kotla.
However, Pieter Seelar took three quick wickets to set India back early as they chased Netherlands' total of 189.Having reached 69 for no loss in 7.3 overs as Sachin and Sehwag made merry, left arm spinner Seelar struck thrice in 14 balls to send them reeling to 82 for 3 in 9.5 overs.Sehwag fell first, driving Seelar to Alexei Kervezee for 39 off 26 balls, with 5 fours and 2 sixes. Sachin Tendulkar followed in the same over, holing out to Bradley Kruger for 27 off 22 balls with 6 fours. Yusuf Pathan, promoted to number three, followed in the same over, caught and bowled by Seelar for 11 off 10 balls with a four and a six.The loss of wickets continued at regular intervals as India lost Virat Kohli in the 15th over, bowled Peter Borren for 12 off 20 balls and Gautam Gambhir went in the 24th over, for 28 off 28 balls, leaving India in a spot of bother at 139 for 5.MS Dhoni joined Yuvraj Singh andf the two calmed things down with a sedate and mature unbeaten partnership of 52 for the sixth wicket to take India home with 81 balls remaining. Yuvraj Singh was unbeaten on 51 runs off 73 balls with 7 fours.
Dhoni remanined unbeaten on 19 off 40 balls.Earlier, India's spinners strangled Netherlands' batsmen on a lifeless pitch as the World Cup co-host bowled its struggling opponent out for 189 in 46.4 overs in after Netherlands won the toss and opted to bat on Wednesday.Slow leftarmer Yuvraj Singh took 2-43 to pass 100 wickets in one day internationals and legspinner Piyush Chawla claimed 2-47 as the Dutch were pegged back after a half-century opening stand between Eric Szwarczynski (28) and Wesley Barresi (26).Captain Peter Borren hit three fours and two sixes and topscored with 38 to give the total some respectability with his late runs but Zaheer Khan mopped up the tail with 3-20.India bowled spin for 24 consecutive overs from the sixth to tie down the batters and having opted to bat first, Netherlands collapsed from 99-2 to 108-6 as it tried to accelerate.Borren's 38-run partnership with Mudassar Bukhari (21) carried the Dutch to 189 as India's under-fire bowlers threatened to undo their earlier good work, before Khan came to the rescue.Fellow seamer Ashish Nehra finished with 1-22 and bowled just five overs on his recall to India's team in place of Munaf Patel.Szwarczynski and Barresi had initially frustrated India's bowling attack with their opening stand as Netherlands began steadily on a pitch offering no help for the seamers.Nehra was allowed just one over in his first spell before being replaced by offspinner Yusuf Pathan.Szwarczynski hit four boundaries in his first match at the tournament, and Barresi struck two, but the openers were out in quick succession as India's slow bowlers cut off the runs and applied the pressure.Szwarczynski was bowled by Chawla and Barresi fell lbw to a skiddy delivery in slow leftarmer Yuvraj's first over to give him his 100th ODI wicket.The Dutch continued to crawl along and were yet to reach 100 in the 29th over when Ryan ten Doeschate's desperate attempt to lift the scoring failed when he holed out to a catch by Khan on the long-off boundary for Yuvraj's second wicket.Nehra struck with his first ball on his return to the attack next over when Cooper edged behind. And with the Dutch middle order exposed, Khan also benefited in his first over back with the wicket of Bas Zuiderent, lbw for a duck.Tom de Grooth was run out by sharp work from Chawla at short midwicket and Netherlands flopped from 99-2 to 108-6 in six overs and never recovered.Borren, coming in at No. 8 in a reshuffled Netherlands batting order, swung away two huge sixes in a mini-fightback. He found support from Bukhari, who also hoisted to sixes into the crowd, as Netherlands finally found some boundaries at the end.Borren popped up a catch to Nehra at backward square leg to give Khan his second wicket and Bukhari was bowled by the fast man as Netherlands failed to bat out its overs.
