India Pakistan 2007 Cricket Series Kanpur ODI
IND v PAK, 3rd ODI: Yuvraj powers India to series lead (IND 2:1)
Nov 11, 2007
Salman Butt’s heroic century went in vain as India made amends for the Mohali debacle by clinching the third cricket one-dayer against Pakistan with a comfortable 46-run margin to take a 2-1 lead in the five-match series at Kanpur today.
Chasing a stiff target of 295 for victory, 23-year-old Butt very nearly took his team home with a career-best 129 but the visitors lost steam in the end to be bundled out for 248 in 47.2 overs on a rather difficult track at Green Park stadium.
The Pakistani run-chase largely centered around left-handed Butt who notched up his fourth ODI hundred, all of which has come against India, but a spate of wickets in quick succession in the last few overs turned the scale in the home team’s favour.
Having failed to defend a mammoth 321 in Mohali, the Indians reverted to the five-bowler combination.
With the asking rate mounting after each over and wickets falling at regular intervals, the momentum shifted decisively in India’s favour after Harbhajan got rid of Butt in the 47th over.
IND vs PAK 3rd ODI, Kanpur: India 294-6 (50.0 overs) beat Pakistan 248-10 (47.2 overs) by 46 runs
IND v PAK, 3rd ODI: Pakistan go into Kanpur ODI with confidence
Nov 11, 2007
Pakistan cricket team captain Shoaib Malik will go in with double confidence in the third match of the ongoing five-match ODI series against India at Kanpur today
Malik has not only squared the series by winning the second match at Mohali after a tough fight but he has also retained captaincy of the national team for the next year contrary to his counterpart Mahendra Singh Dhoni who lost the second ODI match while he failed to win the confidence of the selectors and the BCCI to be appointed as the captain of the Indian Test team in the upcoming three-Test series against Pakistan. This enhanced morale of the Pakistan Captain Shoaib Malik would definitely help him and one could expect an even better performance and fight from the Pakistan team at Kanpur.
The track of the Modi Stadium Kanpur is expected to be a slow paced with low bounce and there is going to be some shuffle in the Pakistan team that won the last match. Slow left-arm Abdul Rehman is likely to replace medium pacer Sohail Tanvir while the inclusion of opener Imran Nazir is also on the cards. The match is going to be the whole day game so there is no threat of the late evening dew and the captain winning the toss will opt to bat first as the track goes slow with low bounce in the second session making batting a bit difficult for the stroke makers.
India team (from): M.S. Dhoni (captain), Gautam Gambhir, Sourav Ganguly, Harbhajan Singh, Murali Kartik, Zaheer Khan, Praveen Kumar, Irfan Pathan, Virender Sehwag, Rohit Sharma, R.P. Singh, Sreesanth, Sachin Tendulkar, Robin Uthappa and Yuvraj Singh.
Pakistan team (from): Shoaib Malik (captain), Younis Khan, Abdur Rehman, Fawad Alam, Iftikhar Anjum, Imran Nazir, Kamran Akmal, Misbah-ul-Haq, Mohammad Yousuf, Salman Butt, Shahid Afridi, Shoaib Akhtar, Sohail Tanvir, Umar Gul and Yasir Hameed