V for vendetta

India eye fifth win at Kolkata to complete series whitewash and avenge their drubbing in England.

Kevin Pietersen will probably know this feeling all too well. As captain of the England team when they last played an ODI series in the subcontinent,Pietersen had to deal with the humiliation of a 5-0 scoreline achieved against them at Cuttack in November 2008. A few hundreds kilometres to the east in Kolkata,Pietersen,now playing under new captain Alastair Cook,is on the verge of facing his second 5-0 thrashing at the hands of the Indians. But in case the whitewash occurs at the Eden Gardens on Tuesday,Cook will face a lot more criticism than his South African born colleague did three years ago,considering he is leading a hardened side one that clean swept India in both Tests and ODIs just a couple of months back at home.

England have lost 5-0 to India in the past. But this time around,despite India skipper MS Dhoni denying the claim in every press conference in the series so far,the revenge theme has ensured that the gravity of a whitewash is the main talking point on the eve of the fifth and final ODI in Kolkata. England dominated proceedings at home,the Indians returned the favour in kind.

After taking a 4-0 lead in Mumbai,the first question that Dhoni was asked the ever-so-familiar whitewash question. The India captain said that nothing in sport can be guaranteed. But so far,almost everything in this series has.

In every game,the young India have stood up to be counted. Ajinkya Rahane has been pretty assuring up the order. Virat Kohli and Suresh Raina have played match-winning knocks. Gautam Gambhir has gotten back to form and Ravindra Jadeja has brought substance to the lower middle order. On the bowling front,Ravichandran Ashwin has been excellent. His bowling in the opening powerplays,middle overs and at death has inspired confidence. Spinners have done a very good job in the series. He has brought plenty of variations to the table, Dhoni said.

As far as pace bowling is concerned,Praveen Kumar and Vinay Kumar have provided early breakthroughs by moving the ball ferociously. But the big story of the series is that India have unearthed a couple of young seamers who can make the batsmen hop around with their pace,even on slow-and-low subcontinental tracks. Both Umesh Yadav and his replacement Varun Aaron can bowl consistently at 140 kmph plus. On his debut,Aaron did what most fast bowlers relish doing cleaning up the tail with perfectly aimed block hole deliveries. Aaron will be happy to know that the Eden Gardens wicket is likely to assist seam and swing early on.

But for the many highs,there have been a couple of lows. Parthiv Patel,who played well as an opener in England,has failed to come to the party and might be replaced with local lad Manoj Tiwary in the final one-dayer. If that is the case,then Gambhir is likely to open the batting with Rahane. Cooks England,on the other hand,have been a big let down so far.

After making a 60 in the opening game,runs havent flowed easily from Cooks willow a reason England have struggled to hit the ground running with their batting. On the other hand,while Pietersen has played a couple of good knocks,he too has failed to convert them into match-winning centuries. While England gave two players,Scott Borthwick and Stuart Meaker,their first England caps once the series turned dead in Mumbai,107-match old Ian Bell the best player of spin bowling in their side is shockingly yet to play a game.

Story continues below this ad

Interestingly,Bell played all but the final ODI of the 2008 series. This time he will hope to make his series debut at the same stage.

Need to execute plans: Cook
Kolkata: Alastair Cook is frustrated with his sides performance so far in the ongoing ODI series but refused to blame lack of effort from the players as the reason for the visitors fourth successive loss to India. Cook said his players could not execute their plans and failed to convert their starts,which was the reason for Englands six-wicket defeat in the fourth ODI.

Its quite frustrating. We have not performed at the level we had done recently. We cant fault training,effort or desire or commitment. We are performing anywhere near to what we can do, said Cook after his side fourth straight defeat in the tour.

We are definitely talking the right thing,but we need to execute it. We are scoring a lot of 30s and 40s but not getting big scores. Its not easy to get that. Once you get set you need to score big because you can lose wickets in clusters. We have talked about it. You can talk as much as you can but its up to the individuals to respond and deliver, he said adding it was deliberate plot to to rest main spinner Graeme Swann for leg-spinner Scott Borthwick.