Series is level at 3-3!
God! What a match! After a humongous hue and cry (raised (only) by yours truly), on the atrocious decision resulting in Owais Shah scoring his MAIDEN ODI century, the match proceeded on with England scoring 316 runs for the loss of 6 wickets.
India responded in brilliant fashion scoring 150 runs for the opening partnership between our very own Tendulkar and Ganguly. Sadly Ganguly would fall at this point, (painfully to Broad, the same bowler with whom he had a verbal altercation earlier) thus making way for the entry of Gambhir. Gambhir struggled in the partnership with Tendulkar who could not take the quick singles due to his frequent bouts of cramps. Tendulkar, on 94, would fall quickly to Panesar, with the score on 156 leaving Gambhir and Yuvraj to try and conjur up a partnership. India then received a double jolt wherein the wickets of Yuvraj and Dravid would fall in quick succession with the scores at 209 and 216 respectively. Mascarenhas and Shah would be the bowlers responsible for the fall of those wickets. The change in pace and the ball stopping on the batsmen would create much trouble for the Indian batsmen.
Gambhir would follow soon after in the 41st over and the score on 234. His wicket would fall to Mascarenhas again. This bowler, responsible for hitting 5 sixes of the last 5 balls in the England innings off part-time bowler Yuvraj, would be responsible for quite a few saves in the field and the two wickets as well. Dhoni and Uthappa then came together to put up a substantial partnership. With 90 runs required of 70 balls, Dhoni started improvising his shots and with the score on 294, Dhoni would be bowled by Broad trying to improvise a shot behind the wicketkeeper.
Agarkar came in to score a single run off the only ball he faced, but was involved in a 13 run partnership, only to be run out trying to go for a second run off the last ball of Anderson's over with the score at 307. With 10 to get off the last over, in came Zaheer. With 2 runs taken by Uthappa off the first ball bowled by Broad, Zaheer was run out the next ball when he was found short of his crease after backing down the wicket too far. His departure left the score at 309 and 8 runs to get off 4 balls.
With Panesar at fine leg, up in the circle, Uthappa improvises the sweep shot to play it over his shoulder and down for a boundary!
4 to get off 3 balls!
Deliberation goes on between the bowler Broad, and the England Captain Collingwood. Fine leg is sent down to the boundary and mid-off would be brought into the circle.
Guess what? Uthappa would smack the next ball straight past mid-off to register the next boundary and level the series for India!!!
3-3 all with everything to play for in the FINAL ODI to be held at Lord's this Sunday!
LORD'S!!! HERE WE COME!!!
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