India posts emphatic win over Australia in warm up match

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Bangaluru: Indian cricket team posted a convincing  38-run victory over defending champion Australia in the first warm up match of the World Cup, held here last night at the Chinnaswamy Stadium – thanks to the magic of spin duo Piyush Chawla and Harbhajan Singh who took 7 wickets between them. India which won the toss and elected to bat could post only a moderate total of 214runs because of the failure of top order batsmen. However, bowlers had come to the aid of the team and gave it the morale boosting victory. Australians collapsed for 176 runs, not being able to stand even for the given 50 runs. They were all out in 37.5 overs.

Indian opener Gautam Gambhir (8) was out when the score was 12. and then Virat Kohli went back to pavilion for 21 runs. The other opener Virendra Sehwag could however score half century. His knock of 54 in 56 balls was studded with 8 hits to the fence and one six. Hard hitting Yousouf Pathan then made a valiant effort to give India an honorable score by making 32 runs. Australian star bowler Bret Lee who could not have success in his first spell has however given a tough time to the Indian batsmen in his second. He took three wickets for 12 runs and put pressure on the Indians in his second spell of five overs. Aswin who made 24 was the only other Indian batsman who made any effort to save the team.  Indian team could score only a modest score of 214 runs.

The world champions were expected to easily score this and post their first victory in the pre-world cup warm up series. However Chawla who got a chance to show his mettle in the warm up match improved his chances of getting berth in the final team cast a deadly spin spell and took four of Australia’s important wickets. Shane Watson and Pine scored 51 runs for the first wicket, strengthening the team’s chances. Watson was caught by Chawla for 38 off Srisant, giving the first break to the Indians. Then Pine gave support to his captain Ricky Ponting to give 100 runs to the team and thus improving the chances of victory. However Pine who scored 37 runs patiently was caught by Munaf Patel off part time bowler Yuvaraj Singh when the score was 108. It looked even then that Australia had bright winning chances. However, Piyush Chawla cast his spell after that and has taken the wickets of Clerk (0), Cameroon White (4), David Hussie (0) and Ferguson (8). Captain Ponting stood steady at the other end and scored half century. However, he tried for a big shot off a ball by another spinner Harbhajan Singh and was stumped by keeper/captain M S Dhoni. Australia scored 175 for 8 wickets by then. But then in the same over Harbhajan and Aswin took the wickets of Kraija and Bret Lee in the same over to complete the trounce of Australia for 176 in 37.5 overs.