Dawn Pakistan's most widely circulated English language newspaper.

India lose way after Ganguly's 90

By Our Special Representative

15 December 1997


SHARJAH, Dec 14: India lost their way somewhere in the middle after Saurav Ganguly and Navjot Sidhu had provided a sound base of 112 for the second wicket, staving off the initial setback caused by a Saba karim run-out at 31.

A sensational run out and an equally brilliant catch brought India down to 143 for three, two wickets falling without a run being added. Sidhu (54) was the first out when a right-on-the target throw from Inzamam found the batsman short by a whisker. It took the TV umpire quite some time to finally rule Sidhu out. In the same over, Robin Singh, who joined Ganguly was brilliantly caught by Moin Khan.

Only three runs later, India had another shock when Inzamam held a diving catch to get rid of skipper Sachin Tendulkar at 147 to give debutant Manzoor Akhtar his first wicket.

Pakistan got the breakthrough when skipper Wasim Akram deflected a hit from Ganguly on his follow through. It was again a very close decision. After repeated TV replays the umpire ruled that Akram's middle finger had touched the ball deflecting it into the wickets on non-striker end while Saba Karim was out of the crease to take a run.

Ganguly (90) and Sidhu (54) played fine strokes. Sidhu faced 60 balls and hit four boundaries while Ganguly's 90 came from 81 balls with the help of one four and three sixes. He played so well to build a reasonable total for his side. But then he is to blame himself as he went out to hit Wasim Akram even before the bowler had bowled,

completely missing the line of the ball. The fifth India wicket fell at 205 in the 43rd over. India still had Azharuddin and Ajay Jadeja and a total of 260 plus was not a tall order. Azhar did his bit by scoring 34 off 57 balls but Jadeja, with a 50 in the first match, was bowled by Saqlain trying a big hit, for 6.

Pakistan's bowling, except for the period when Ganguly and Sidhu were in full cry, was on target and the ground fielding was agile. Except for one catch dropped by Saqlain when Saba Karim was 6, they gave a good account to restrict India to 238 for seven in the end.

Pakistan made two changes in the side that lost to the West Indies on Friday. Opener Aamir Sohail was dropped due to sickness. Aqib Javed was included in place of Waqar Younis.


Source: Dawn
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Date-stamped : 25 Feb1998 - 14:58