Skipper gets redemption at Lord’s feet

For, soon after Kaif and Zaheer completed the winning run, he took off his shirt in the manner Andrew Flintoff had done in Mumbai as England won the nerve-wrecker of a match in the final encounter.

Ganguly admitted what happened that January evening was a painful moment for him as an Indian captain. He also said the Lord’s win maintained the team’s unbeaten record in a one-day series in 2002.

‘‘We have won every series we have played this year. The word final is missing but we have won the deciders,’’ said Ganguly, making a reference to critics’ point that India has struggled to win finals in recent past.

Until yesterday, India had failed to win nine of the one-day finals they played on the trot since 1998. They were tied 3-3 by England in the six-match series at home early this year but beat the West Indies 2-1 in the Caribbean before arriving in England. Ganguly praised the efforts of Yuvraj Singh and Mohammad Kaif who revived the Indian innings with a 121-run stand for the sixth wicket after the team had slumped for 146/5.

‘‘This is one of the greatest one-day innings (from Kaif) we must have seen. Those two batted like champions,’’ said Ganguly.

He ran on to the field after India won, straight to Mohammad Kaif and pinned the youngster down on the field in an overt display of emotion with a hint of tears in his eyes.

Ganguly said he thought India were out of the game after having lost five wickets for 146. ‘‘We thought we were out of the game. We got off to a good start but then lost important wickets.’’

For England captain Nasser Hussain too, it was the same memory of Flintoff’s act that helped him and his team believe in themselves till the end but the result was a bit different this time. “We have some good memories against India and even when Flintoff came back and took those two wickets, we thought we could still win. Hussain was wholesome in praise for Kaif and Yuvraj Singh and said India do produce talented youngsters at an early age.

“India do produce a lot of young players. They have Yuvraj and Kaif and boys like Wasim Jaffer in the Test team.

“Yuvraj in particular played very well. We tried various things at him… But he seemed to hit it in all areas.”

Hussain said Indians have shown great form in the summer so far and it would be some task to tackle this line-up in the upcoming Test series. “They have shown a lot of class in this tournament. All of their batsmen, whether at No. 7 or 8, have shown a lot of class and we can’t take them for granted. “There was no disgrace in losing to India,” said Hussain, who did not think the defeat should reflect poorly on his team. “It has been one of the great games of cricket in recent times especially when one-day internationals seem to fizzle out.” (PTI)