All-round heroics from Watson draw Aussies level with India

By Balbir Singh, Mohali, Nov 2 : Shane Watson came up with an all-round display to lead Australia to a 24-run win and square the series 2-2 against India in the fourth One-day international at the PCA stadium here tonight.

Watson followed his 52-ball 49 with two valuable wickets of Harbhajan (31) and Praveen Kumar (16), who once again looked threatening to take the match away.

Chasing Australia's 250 all-out, India was bowled out for 226 with 20 balls to spare.

Pacer Doug Bollinger did the maximum damage and sent three top-order Indian batsmen back in the hut. The left-armer returned with figures of three for 37 in nine overs.

Sehwag started the innings in his usual fashion and gave India a rollicking start as he blazed to a 19-ball 30, which hardly required any running as he struck seven boundaries in his innings.

Sachin Tendulkar meanwhile, was content to see Sehwag's heroics from the other end and the pair looked set to take the match away from the Australians.

India had raced to 40 in just six overs and Doug Bollinger was introduced into the attack after Mitchell Johnson went for plenty in his first spell.

Sehwag was unable to score a run off Bollinger's first four deliveries and chanced his arms in the penultimate ball of the over, only to see himslef being caught at mid-off.

Virat Kohli (10), who came in place of the injured Gautam Gambhir, once again disappointed and was accounted by Bollinger.

Fans turned out in large numbers to see Tendulkar knock off those 47 runs required to reach the 17,000 runs in ODIs but the batting maestro fell short by seven runs when he was trapped leg-before by off-spinner nathan Hauritz.

Tendulkar made a pain-staking 40 off 68 balls with the help of six hits to the fence.

Local lad Yuvraj Singh (12) had not done much of damage when Ricky Ponting's direct hist from short cover found the batsman short of his crease.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni (26) had put on just 32 runs with Suresh Raina (7) for the fifth stand when the Indian captain gloved a delivery from Bollinger straight into the hands of wicket-keeper Graham Manou.

The writing was on the wall for the Indians and it was again left to Harbhajan Singh and Praveen Kumar (16).

The off-spinner was once again in action and the the alarm bells were ringing in the Australian camp. Harbhajan went after the bowling and his lusty blows and the crowd was on his feet.

With Harbhajan at the crease, India took the powerplay and the off-spinner launched an onslaught. Johnson was again at the receiving end with Harbhajan smashing him for 12 runs.

The 'turbanator' raced to a 25-ball 31 before he was caught and bowled Shane Watson and Praveen Kumar did strke a few characteristic shots to bring down the asking rate.

He too was accounted by Watson when he edged the bowler to wicket-keeper.

--UNI

(c) 2009 Published with permission from United News of India.
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