Wahab Riaz leads Pakistan fightback, restricts India to 260
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Punjab-c833 Cricket Association Stadium, Mohali, in India. The hosts got off to a superb start and seemed to be dominating the game, but excellent bowling
performance by left-arm pacer Wahab Riaz stunned the Indian batting line-up, turning the tables around.
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/MS-Dhoni-c2028 elected to bat first after winning the toss and he expected a high scoring game, as the pitch was better suited for batsmen.
Indian openers Sachin Tendulkar and http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Virender-Sehwag-c95429 didn’t waste too much time to settle down and started attacking the opposition from the very beginning of the match. They took their team’s total to 47 in just five overs with ferocious batting, boundary
after boundary.
Umar Gul, who had been in excellent form with the new ball until today’s match, had no clue of where to bowl against the Indian openers with the pressure being exerted by the Indian openers. However, things changed when Wahab Riaz was introduced into the
attack.
The tall left-arm bowler got rid of Sehwag in his first over with a perfect delivery, bewildering Sehwag and ending his innings. However, the flamboyant batsman had done his job by scoring 38 runs off just 25 balls striking nine boundaries in his blistering
innings.
First-drop, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Gautam-Gambhir-c58623, joined Tendulkar in the middle and the new pair guided their team’s total above 100 with a 68 run partnership for the second wicket. Just when things started to look good for the hosts, Gambhir got the best of Mohammad Hafeez,
and ended up getting stumped, scoring 27 runs off 32 balls.
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Virat-Kohli-c95424, the Indian youngster, came up next and struggled to get the team going but he only managed to score 9 runs off 21 balls. Wahab, with his exhilarating pace and swing, sent him back to the pavilion, grabbing his second wicket of the innings.
The fall of Kohli brought the in-form Indian batsman Yuvraj Singh to the pitch. However, the flamboyant left-handed batsman lasted just one ball at the crease. He was bamboozled by a reverse swinging yorker from Wahab, snatching his third wicket for Pakistan.
Although, Tendulkar scored highest in the innings with 85 runs from 115 balls, the veteran batsman was extremely lucky today, as he was dropped four times today. He was eventually caught, by Pakistani skipper, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Shahid-Afridi-c2482, off the bowling of Saeed Ajmal.
Dhoni became the fourth victim of Wahab, being sent back to the pavilion after adding 25 runs to the total. Lower middle-order batsman Suresh Raina guided his team’s total over 250 with an unbeaten 36 off 39 balls for the remaining innings.
Wahab Riaz was exceptional with his swing and pace today and took a well deserved five wicket haul for Pakistan. He got good support from Saeed Ajmal, who also grabbed two crucial wickets, but at the end of the day the decision to retain Wahab and not replace
him with Shoaib Akhtar paid off for the Pakistani team.
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