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| Monday, 1 March 2004 |
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Pakistan beat India, u-19 World Cup enter final Chris Dhambarage reporting from Bangladesh DHAKA, Bangladesh. February 29 Pakistan recovered from an early scare to beat their arch rivals India by five wickets in a gripping ICC under 19 Youth World Cup cricket tournament semifinal match under lights at the Bangabandhu National Stadium here today. Reduced to 83 for 5 in the 28th over the Pakistanis came back into the game through their late order batting to pull off one of the most exciting games of the sixteen nation tournament. They overtook India's total of 169 runs quite easily at the end scoring 171 for 5 in 44 overs. This was mainly due to two fighting knocks from Fawad Alam and Tariq Mahmood who were associated in a 88 run unfinished sixth wicket partnership. The pair after going through some anxious moments settled down to play some delightful shots which really surprised the opposition. The man of the match Mahmood had one six and four boundaries in his knock of 45 while Alam stroked seven fours during his aggressive knock of 43 which sealed the game for Pakistan. But more importantly their occupation at the crease was more important because both of them came into bat at a critical stage when the Indians were crawling back into the game with a couple of quick wickets. Pakistan lost their captain Khalid Latif in the third over and the rest of the top order batsmen came under tremendous pressure against some tight bowling. Earlier Pakistan put themselves in a strong position to reach the final by dismissing the formidable Indian team for a meager 169 runs. The Indians were in all kinds of trouble from the moment they won the toss and elected to bat first in this day night encounter losing wickets at regular intervals. They did not get the usual flowing start from the openers and also felt the absence of their skipper Ambati Rayudu who was serving a one match suspension. The Pakistanis really put an one hundred percent effort on the field and never let their opponents settle down to play a long innings. India in fact suffered an early setback losing their most consistent batsman in this tournament Shikar Dhawan in the 6th over of the innings with the score at 23. Dhawan was in tremendous form going into this game having collected over five hunderd runs in the tournament including three centuries. They never recovered from there onwards and it was left for the tailenders to collect some useful runs at the end. In fact India lost half of their side for only 92 runs by the 26th over and were in danger of being bowled out for under 150 runs in under 40 overs. But they took the game until the 48th over mainly due to some gutsy batting from all rounders Abhishek Sharma and Sunney Singh. They were unable to collect the boundaries but kept the score moving through singles and the two's. In fact Pakistan's bowling was so good that India managed to score only nine boundaries and one six during the entire innings. Gaurav Dhiman hoisted the only six while opener Robin Uthappa struck three fours during his top score of 33. Uthappa made a desperate attempt to give the Indian team a competitive total adding 49 runs for the third wicket along with Solanki. But the Indians just could not put up any good partnership from there onwards and were always under pressure. The two Pakistan opening bowlers Riaz Afridi and Ali Imran were outstanding and were backed up well by the spinner Salman Qadir and Tariq Mahmood. INDIA Robin Uthappa c Amjad b Qadir 33 Shikar Dhawan c Latif b Imran 8 Praful Waghela lbw b Afridi 0 R. K. Solanki run out (Afridi) 21 Suresh Raina c Haider b Mahmood 17 Dinesh Karthik c Latif b Qadir 7 Sunny Singh b Ajmad 25 Gaurav Dhiman c Qadir b Mahmood 14 Abhishek Sharma not out 21 Praveen Gupta b Imran 3 Rudra Singh c Qadir b Afridi 1 Extras (lb6, w9, nb4) 19 TOTAL all out in 47.3 overs 169 FALL OF WICKETS: 1-23, 2-24, 3-73, 4-80, 5-92, 6-113, 7-135, 8-147, 9-166. BOWLING: Afridi 8.3-0-31-2, Imran 9-0-38-2, Amjad 10-0-33-1, Qadir 10-0-27-2, Mahmood 10-2-34-2. PAKISTAN Khalid Latif lbw b Dhiman 1 Adnam Zaheer c Sharma b Gupta 18 Jahangir Mizra lbw b Singh 9 Usman Saeed b Sharma 19 Salman Qadir c Karthik b Singh 24 Tariq Mahmood not out 45 Fawad Alam not out 43 Extras (lb7, w3, nb2) 12 TOTAL for 5 wickets in 44 overs 171 FALL OF WICKETS: 1-3, 2-20, 3-48, 4-68, 5-83. BOWLING: Dhiman 8-0-34-1, Singh 10-2-25-2, Gupta 7-2-24-1, Raina 10-1-34-0, Sharma 8.5-1-43-1, Solanki 1-0-4-0 |
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