India triumph with much to spare

India won the fifth and final one-day international, at the Nehru stadium in Guwahati, by 101 runs and clinched the five-match series against Zimbabwe 3-2.

"I'm sure things will turn around this time. It has to turn around some day. We need to play aggressively like we did in the last game," Ganguly said, when reminded about the choking tradition of his team before the game, not to mention the nine finals India lost since April 1999.

Zimbabwe skipper Stuart Carlisle claimed that he had worked out a secret plan to tackle the Yuvraj Singh factor. Halfway through the day, after 75 fluent runs from the bat of Yuvraj Singh, the secret plan stayed just that; a secret!

The match at Guwahati today and the earlier game at Hyderabad must have been satisfying for coach John Wright, as the youngsters put their hands up when the chips were down, despite the team being without the services of key players Sachin Tendulkar and Virendra Sehwag.

Opener Dinesh Mongia struck a brilliant unbeaten 159 as India posted their fourth highest score ever in a one-day internationals, confounding the national selectors with an embarrassment of riches to pick from for the forthcoming tours of the West Indies and England later this year.

Indian innings

Guwahati has a history of captains winning the toss and inserting the opposition in 80 per cent of the time. So, skipper Sourav Ganguly won the toss and decided to take first strike.

"It's a pressure game, so we bat first," he said, underlining the choker tag that accompanies this Indian squad.

And rightly so, the Indians included Karnataka batsman Vijay Bharadwaj at the cost of left-arm spinner Murali Kartik to strengthen the batting. Zimbabwe lost medium pacer Pommie Mbangwa due to a hamstring and replaced him with another medium pacer in Gary Brent, who recovered from a bout of malaria.

The Indian start was sedate, with opening bowlers Heath Streak and Douglas Hondo bowling with immaculate control. Hondo, in fact, got appreciable deviation from the wicket while sending down two consecutive maidens. The Indian openers failed to get the ball off the square and rotate the strike, courtesy some tight fielding by the 'red ants'.

The home team found favour with umpire Sameer Bandekar, standing in his maiden one-dayer, when he turned down an LBW appeal against Mongia in Heath Streak's third over of the morning. In the same over, he called wide after skipper Ganguly gave him a hard stare after being unable to reach the ball.

Ganguly released the pressure in style when he danced down the wicket and dispatched Hondo off the first ball of the eighth over to the long-on fence. A full toss off the next ball was sent to the cover boundary. A single later, Mongia played a copybook lofted on-drive for another four.

Zimbabwe undid all the hard work when Ganguly in the very next over pulled Streak for a four and drove through the covers for another one. Twenty-three runs were scored in over numbers eight and nine, with the first seven overs yielding a miserly 18 runs.

Persevering with his disciplined length, Streak then moved one a tad bit from Ganguly (28), who flashed and edged to keeper Tatenda Taibu in the 11th over [52-1]. Replays confirmed that Streak had overstepped the line with the umpire failing to spot the no-ball.

Taibu had grassed a clear inside edge from Dinesh Mongia off Travis Friend in the previous over.

An worrying facet of the first 15 overs were the 61 dot balls from the 90 balls bowled, with the score reading 81 for 1 after 15 overs. 81 runs were scored off only 29 balls, with the batsmen yet again undermining the importance of the singles.

V V S Laxman (20) played the ball into the covers, set off for a nonexistent single and failed to get back in. Twenty overs into the innings, India were 98 for 2, and rather comfortably placed.

Rahul Dravid leaned into the first ball he faced and drove through the covers for four. Mongia then got to his fifty, cutting a short ball from Doug Marillier to the fence. His fifty came off 64 balls, of which 35 were dot balls, 19 singles and seven boundaries.

Dravid's brief knock of 26 was terminated when Hondo got through his defenses as he played across the line of the ball [149-3].

Mohammad Kaif, with two consecutive fifties to his name, drove Douglas Hondo uppishly to midwicket fielder Andy Flower, who scooped a good low catch inches from the ground [157-4].

The dismissal of Kaif brought state teammates Mongia and Yuvraj Singh, the man-of-the-match of the Hyderabad ODI, together.

Playing with an unveiling calm beyond their years, the duo placed the ball shrewdly with soft hands, scampering for the singles and finding the gaps with precision. The rate of scoring was a clinical execution of the game-plan coach John Wright had been suggesting: reduce the dot balls, take your singles and punish the lose balls.

The Indian 200 was scored in the 38th over, setting the launch pad for the final assault on a score of 300-plus.

With a healthy 55-run partnership off 58 balls between Yuvraj and Mongia by the 40th over, with six wickets standing, the odds were stacked against the Zimbabweans.

Mongia then played an audacious cover drive off Travis Friend to reach his maiden one-day hundred off 121 balls. Having got the monkey off his back, he tore into the Zimbabwean attack, hoicking Friend to the deep-mid-wicket fence for four. Yuvraj then cut a wide delivery to the point fence and the celebrations had begun.

14 runs were scored in the 43rd over bowled by Friend, who had a horrendous time with the ball on this tour; 16 came in the 44th over from Gary Brent, with Yuvraj Singh hoicking a huge six off a full toss, over mid-wicket.

Despite finding the fence at will, Mongia and Yuvraj kept pushing for the singles and the twos as well.

In the next over (45), Friend bowled another short and wide delivery, which was duly cut square by Mongia, a sharp single followed, resulting in an overthrow, and five runs were scored off a single ball. That completed the 100-run partnership between Mongia and Yuvraj, off a mere 83 balls.

The duo scored at a rate of 16 runs an over and amassed 83 runs in the five overs between the 43rd and the 47th.

Yuvraj reached his fourth half-century off 41 deliveries (five fours and a six) with 21 singles and a mere 11 dot balls. He possesses the acumen of a seasoned cricketer beneath the veneer of a slam-bang batsman for the shorter version of the game.

India had rocketed from 212-4 in the 40th over to 269-4 in the 45th; they went from 200 to 250 in 36 deliveries, and from 250 to 300 in just 16 balls.

The first ball of the 45th over marked Mongia's best shot of the innings. He waited on the ball and hit it straight for six with a classical follow-through. A single by Mongia handed the strike to Yuvraj, who belligerently smashed through the mid-wicket fence for six.

None of the bowlers were spared, with even Streak being sent packing over the mid-wicket fence in the 47th over for a six. The 300-run mark was crossed in the same over, when Mongia cut a four through mid-wicket.

Yuvraj’s 75-run knock, off 52 balls, came to an end when he was caught in the deep off Marillier in the 49th over. The 158-run partnership off 107 balls had sealed the match in India’s favour.

Mongia and Yuvraj had come together in the 31st over with India on 157 for 4 and only Vijay Bharadwaj, keeper Ratra and the bowlers to follow. Mongia finished the innings with consecutive fours off the last two balls. It was the fourth highest score by an Indian in ODIs. His 159 off 147 balls was a knock coach John Wright had predicted after the second one-dayer at Mohali.

The most encouraging aspect was the way Mongia stamped out the dot balls from his innings as it progressed; his 147 ball epic had 61 dot balls, of which he had 31 in the first 15 overs. The 55 singles in his innings was another reason to suggest that this boy from Punjab along with Yuvraj needs to be on the flight to the West Indies, instead of travelling with the India 'A' team to South Africa.

India ended up with a mammoth 333 for 6 in their allotted 50 overs.

Zimbabwe innings

The match referee docked two overs of the Zimbabwean innings for their slow over rate. Opener Dion Ebrahim flicked Agarkar for four to square leg to get the Zimbabwean run-chase under way, and Campbell lofted the red straight to the long-off fence with the asking rate mounting with every dot ball.

India's opening bowlers, Zaheer Khan and Ajit Agarkar bowled with great control and bottled up the run flow despite Campbell and Ebrahim dispatching the rank-bad ball to the fence. Realising the swelling run rate, Campbell (31) slashed Agarkar past slip twice in the same over, but was swallowed by Vijay Bharadwaj at mid-off when he tried to loft Khan [50-1].

Travis Friend raised hopes of a fightback against the odds, smashing a full toss to long-off and then pulling another long-hop to the midwicket fence. Harbhajan Singh and Sourav Ganguly though kept bolting the door on the scoring.

With Dion Ebrahim playing at a leisurely pace, Zimbabwe were unable to step on the gas and the pressure caused the tumbling of wickets at the other end.

Friend was the second wicket to fall when he charged Harbhajan Singh, played inside the line, and Ratra, having all the time in the world, dislodged the bails with a yawn [111-2].

Andy Flower was dismissed for one when Harbhajan hoodwinked him in flight as he went through with the shot for Khan to hold on to a dazzling catch, running from mid-off, with the ball going away from him [113-3] .

Ganguly had a piece of the celebration when he castled Ebrahim around his legs with the opener shuffling across the stumps [114-4].

Three wickets fell in the space of seven balls for three runs and the backbone of the Zimbabwean attack had been broken.

Vijay Bharadwaj, bowling his rusty off-spinners, had Carlisle caught at the mid-wicket fence by Rahul Dravid.

In the 40th over, Khan then blasted a perfect yorker and had Grant Flower (48) walking back to the dressing room; the batsman failed to even get his bat down [227-6].

Two deliveries later, Khan, spitting fire with every delivery, yorked Douglas Marillier, hitting his leg-stump on the full for a duck, and avenging the battering Marillier had given him in the opening game at Faridabad [222-7].

Gary Brent, overwhelmed with the run chase, attempted to sweep Harbhajan, got the top edge and Kaif gobbled up the catch as India marched towards a handsome win with Heath Streak fighting a losing cause at the other end [229-9].

Harbhajan Singh claimed his fourth wicket, with Streak attempting the reverse sweep straight to Khan, and handing Zimbabwe a 101-run defeat.

A relieved skipper Ganguly heaved a sigh of relief after the selectors had deferred the selection of the team for the West Indies tour next month following the dismal surrender at Kochi in the third one-dayer.

Scorecard: India: 333/6 | Zimbabwe: 232