India made the hattrick of sorts as they rounded up England in the third consecutive ODI in the 7-ODI Hero Honda Cup. India won by 16 runs as the match had to be truncated by the Duckworth-Lewis method owing to bad lighting. The match was afflicted by bad weather even before it started and England set a target of 240 ahead of India in 49 overs of play allotted.

England got a fine start as openers Ravi Bopara (60) and Ian Bell (46) built a 79-run opening wicket stand. The match started 45 minutes later than the scheduled time because of poor weather conditions and it was odd to see 49 overs being consigned without any cut in the lunch duration. Bell went before he could finish a half-century and the innings got destabilized. Skipper Pietersen (13) could not work any wonders and Collingwood (1) became Harbhajan Singh’s second victim shortly after. Dangerman Flintoff (23) was dismissed by Pathan as Owais Shah (40) was returned by Bhajji after an earnest attempt to push up the scoring rate. That was to no avail, as England did not score a single boundary in the last 3 overs while Ishant Sharma missed a hattrick in the 49th over. Man of the Match Bhajji took 3/31 as Munaf Patel and Ishant Sharma backed him with 2 wickets each.

On India’s turn, Gautam Gambhir (14) and Suresh Raina (1) stumbled quickly leaving India at 40-2. The target was never scary so India took it light as some quick play by Virender Sehwag (68) and Yuvraj Singh (38) got India a high run rate, which eventually decided the match in India’s favor. The game had to be cut short to 40 overs of play as bad lights interrupted the match and India won the match by 16 runs according to D/L method at 198-5 in 40 overs.

This was the first match of the series that was played on level plane. So far, India had dominated England in all aspects of the game in the previous two matches. Although England lost, they gave India a mature competition and fought hard to survive in the game. With 3-0 up in the series, India reign supreme on confidence as they enter the fourth match to clinch the series.

Cricket360 also reports the selection of Irfan Pathan and a surprising come back of Sachin Tendulkar in the 15 member team for the next 2 ODIs against England. RP Singh’s bad luck and bad performance shows him the way out and Murali Vijay goes back after resting in the dressing room in the first 3 ODIs.

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3.25 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."

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