Dhaka:
Praveen Kumar ran through the top-order as Paksitan,
chasing a near-impossible 331 for a win, surrendered
virtually without a fight to be dismissed for
190 in the tri-series contest at the Sher-e-Bangla
Stadium here, handing India a huge 140-run win.
Praveen returned figure of 4-53 as the top four
batsmen fell to him, and Pakistan were virtually
out of the contest by the end of the fifth over
when they batted. Pakistan lost three wickets
with next to nothing on the scoreboard, and
were never in the game after that.
Praveen Kumar removed
Salman Butt, Younis Khan and Mohd Yousuf in
rapid succession, and then Kamran Akmal also
fell to him after using the long handle for
a while.
Once Misbah-ul-Haq also
departed, edging Ishant Sharma to skipper
Mahendra Singh Dhoni, the match was effectively
over, as the slower bowlers led by Piyush
Chawla (4-40) then wrapped up the rest of
the batting.
Skipper Shoaib Malik
scored a half-century, but was never convincing.
Earlier, Virender Sehwag
(89) and Gautam Gambhir (62) put up 155 runs
for the opening wicket as India finished at
330-8.
Yuvraj Singh also contributed
55 while Dhoni and Suresh Raina chipped in
to add to the total, as the Paksitanis came
up with one of their worst bowling performances
in the recent years.
Umar Gul picked up three
wickets but went for 61 runs, while the rest
of the bowling ranged between the unimaginative
and the pathetic.
Some attacking batting
by the Indians, combined with some pathetic
bowling and equally ridiculous captaincy by
Malik saw India rattle up a potentially match-winning
330-8 in their tri-series game after Dhoni
won the toss and elected to bat.
The only man not to get
going was Yusuf Pathan, who made his One-day
International debut.
The Pakistani bowlers
completely lost their poise as the Indians
went after them from the beginning of the
innings. The fielding side was completely
demoralised as the bowlers bowled all over
-- short, wide and overpitched.
The lowest ebb came after
left-arm seamer Wahab Riaz was ordered out
of the attack by the umpires after he bowled
two beamers.
Malik, in his wisdom,
threw the ball to strike bowler Sohail Tanvir,
ensuring that the IPL hero gets to bowl only
9.4 of his 10-over quota. Ultimately, it was
left to Younis Khan to bowl the last over.
This was India's first
game of the series, while Pakistan had already
registered a 70-run win over hosts Bangladesh
on Sunday.
India: Virender Sehwag,
Gautam Gambhir, Yuvraj Singh, Rohit Sharma,
Yusuf Pathan, MS Dhoni, Suresh Raina, Irfan
Pathan, Piyush Chawla, Praveen Kumar, Ishant
Sharma.
Pakistan: Salman Butt,
Kamran Akmal, Younis Khan, Mohammad Yousuf,
Shahid Afridi, Shoaib Malik, Misbah-ul-Haq,
Sohail Tanvir, Umar Gul, Wahab Riaz, Iftikhar
Anjum.