England’s brittle batting was exposed once again when they crashed to a 124-run defeat against a scratch Mumbai side in a one-day warm-up game yesterday.
Chasing a modest 223, the visitors slumped to 98 all out in 25 overs to set alarm bells ringing ahead of the real action, which starts in Rajkot on Friday with the first of seven one-day internationals.
Local seamer Khsemal Waingankar picked up 5-37 as the tourists lost their top five batsmen for 33 runs in a collapse reminiscent of their recent Twenty20 drubbing in Antigua when they were bowled out for 99.
Waingankar had played in just one first-class game prior to yesterday’s outing at the Brabourne stadium.
England captain Kevin Pietersen afterwards tried to downplay his side’s failure against unimpressive opposition.
“The wicket wasn’t difficult [to chase]. We didn’t apply ourselves as we should have,” Pietersen said. “I think [there was] just a bit of indiscipline in some of the shots and some of that just crept in today.”
“I think the guys are all right,” he said. “Today and what happened the other day doesn’t really count in the grand scheme of things. What counts is the internationals.”
“This really doesn’t matter, but it has taught us a few quick lessons,” he said.
“It’s Friday counts for us now and we will be coming real, real hard on Friday. It’s a big, big series for us, this,” Pietersen said.
The England bowlers did well to restrict the Mumbai President’s XI to 222-7 off 50 overs after electing to field with paceman Steve Harmison and left-arm spinner Samit Patel picking up two wickets each.
The local team owed their total to Sushant Marathe, who struck a fine 65 with seven fours, and opener Paul Valthaty, who made a patient 44 off 75 balls. Shoaib Shaikh boosted the total further with a cameo 37 from 35 balls.
The visitors struggled from early in their innings when in-form opener Ian Bell — who made 58 in the side’s 122-run victory in the opening tour match on Sunday — was caught behind off Waingankar for six.
Pietersen was out for a duck, trapped leg before by Waingankar who also accounted for Patel (13), Ravi Bopara (9) and Luke Wright (1).
Andrew Flintoff failed to sustain the form that saw him smash an unbeaten century in Sunday’s game, edging behind off Rahil Shaikh having made just five.
The Rajkot one-dayer will be followed by matches in Indore (Nov. 17), Kanpur (Nov. 20), Bangalore (Nov. 23), Cuttack (Nov. 26), Guwahati (Nov. 29) and New Delhi (Dec. 2).
The one-day series will be followed by two Tests in Ahmedabad and Mumbai.
North Korea’s FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup-winning team on Saturday received a heroes’ welcome back in the capital, Pyongyang, with hundreds of people on the streets to celebrate their success. They had defeated Spain on penalties after a 1-1 draw in the U17 World Cup final in the Dominican Republic on Nov. 3. It was the second global title in two months for secretive North Korea — largely closed off to the outside world; they also lifted the FIFA U20 Women’s World Cup in September. Officials and players’ families gathered at Pyongyang International Airport to wave flowers and North Korea flags as the
Taiwan’s top table tennis player Lin Yun-ju made his debut in the US professional table tennis scene by taking on a new role as a team’s co-owner. On Wednesday, Major League Table Tennis (MLTT), founded in September last year, announced on its official Web site that Lin had become part of the ownership group of the Princeton Revolution, one of the league’s eight teams. MLTT chief executive officer Flint Lane described Lin’s investment as “another great milestone for table tennis in America,” saying that the league’s “commitment to growth and innovation is drawing attention from the best in the sport, and we’re
Coco Gauff of the US on Friday defeated top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka 7-6 (7/4), 6-3 to set up a showdown with Olympic champion Zheng Qinwen in the final of the WTA Finals, while in the doubles, Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching was eliminated. Gauff generated six break points to Belarusian Sabalenka’s four and built on early momentum in the opening set’s tiebreak that she carried through to the second set. She is the youngest player at 20 to make the final at the WTA Finals since Denmark’s Caroline Wozniacki in 2010. Zheng earlier defeated Wimbledon champion Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic 6-3, 7-5 to book
For King Faisal, a 20-year-old winger from Ghana, the invitation to move to Brazil to play soccer “was a dream.” “I believed when I came here, it would help me change the life of my family and many other people,” he said in Sao Paulo. For the past year and a half, he has been playing on the under-20s squad for Sao Paulo FC, one of South America’s most prominent clubs. He and a small number of other Africans are tearing across pitches in a country known as the biggest producer and exporter of soccer stars in the world, from Pele to Neymar. For
RSS