Smile stays after the photo finish

India very nearly wasted a century effort by Virender Sehwag before scampering for a narrow one-wicket victory against New Zealand in a nerve-wracking sixth one-day international here today. Sehwag cracked a brilliant 112, his second hundred of this series, to bring India within 17 runs of New Zealand’s total of 199 for nine but the visitors lost six wickets in a space of 15 runs to make a complete mess of the easy situation.

SCOREBOARD

New Zealand: S Fleming c Dravid b Nehra 14; M Sinclair b Srinath 18; C Harris lbw Agarkar 0; C Cairns b Srinath 13; S.Styris c Bangar b Ganguly 42; L Vincent not out 53; B McCullum run out 0; K Mills c Dravid b Srinath 0; A Adams b Khan 2; D Tuffey run out 1; S Bond not out 31; Extras: (b-4, lb-11, w-2, nb-8) 25; Total (for 9 wkts, 50 overs) 199 Fall of wickets: 1-26, 2-28, 3-47, 4-50, 5-130, 6-131, 7-134, 8-144, 9-147 Bowling: Srinath 10-2-13-3, Khan 10-0-53-1, Nehra 10-1-31-1, Agarkar 8-0-34-1, Bangar 4-0-22-0, Ganguly 8-2-31-1. India: S Ganguly c McCullum b Adams 23; V Sehwag c Fleming b Mills 112; R Dravid lbw Styris 21; S Tendulkar c McCullum b Tuffey 1; Y Singh c Fleming b Harris 8; M Kaif b Adams 7; S Bangar lbw Adams 1; A Agarkar run out 0; Z Khan run out 1; J Srinath not out 0; A Nehra not out 1; Extras (lb-4, w-12, nb-9) 25; Total (for 9 wkts, 48.5 overs) 200 Fall of wickets: 1-70, 2-142, 3-159, 4-182, 5-187, 6-194, 7-194, 8-197, 9-198 Bowling: Bond 6-1-20-0, Tuffey 10-0-46-1, Adams 9.5-0-41-3, Mills 10-1-43-1, Styris 10-1-40-1, Harris 3-0-6-1

In a dramatic finish, Ashish Nehra struck a boundary off the penultimate ball of the match to bring India their second successive victory of the seven-match series which the home team has already clinched after winning the first four games.

It was a typical example of a nervous breakdown of the Indian batsmen in pressure situation after Sehwag was dismissed at the total of 182 in the 42nd over. The Indians had seven overs to get 18 runs with six wickets in hand.

But Yuvraj Singh (8), Mohammad Kaif (7), Sanjay Bangar (1), Ajit Agarkar (0) and Zaheer Khan (0) could not keep their cool and got out one after the other to induce drama where there was none.

The nervousness of the Indians was best exemplified in the run outs of Agarkar and Zaheer Khan, who reached the other end without even looking at their partner.

It came down to four runs needed from the last over. The usually cool Kaif and Zaheer Khan were dismissed before Nehra pulled Andre Adams over the crowded infield to bring relief on the faces of the Indians.

The Indians had earlier displayed their best batting performance of the tour with Sehwag putting up 70 runs for the first wicket with captain Saurav Ganguly and 72 for the second with Rahul Dravid to put the side firmly on path of victory. (PTI)