The Hindu : Sport / Cricket : Raina flies high

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Aug 20, 2005

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Sport - Cricket

Raina flies high

K.C. Vijaya Kumar

SWEEPING SUCCESS: Suresh Raina ensured Air-India a berth in the final of the Bradman Cup.

BANGALORE: : Suresh Raina, the Air-India captain, did enough to ensure a final berth for his team in the Unibic 20-20 Bradman Cup tournament that commenced at the Chinnaswamy Stadium here on Friday evening.

Raina's unbeaten 57 (60b, 7x4, 1x6) helped Air-India defeat New South Wales (NSW) by seven wickets and register its second successive victory to top Zone B. Air-India will now clash with the Zone A topper in the final here on Sunday night. Besides a sledgehammer innings, Raina also turned his arm over earlier and grabbed two wickets with his off-breaks.

The clash between the Bradman World XI and the KSCA XI was washed out dampening the spirits of the crowd as the likes of Adam Hollioake, Javagal Srinath, Mohammed Sami and Romesh Kaluwitharana were set to don the World XI colours. The match, scheduled to start at 7 p.m., was called off at 8.15 p.m. The match will now be played here on Saturday afternoon.

Earlier chasing 98, Air-India lost its opener R. Sharma to a brilliant catch. Sharma's uppish drive off Bracken had nearly slithered away when E. Cowan, in a moment of pure airborne brilliance at short covers, pulled off a diving catch.

However, there were no further alarms as Raina along with Naman Ojha (27) shared a 69-run second-wicket partnership that eased the run-chase. Ojha used his feet to the spinners and played second fiddle while Raina, with the deft touch of the southpaw punctured holes on the off-side. A straight driven four off seamer Cameron, a swept four off Burke and a pull for six off Lambert, left Raina standing tall in the middle while NSW searched for the elusive breakthrough.

The NSW batsmen swung their bats and warmed the waiting palms of Air India fielders. Opener Jarrad Burke failed to check his hook off Trivedi and spooned to Raina and the other NSW batsmen too left in a hurry with uppish shots.

Big win

In the inaugural match, Air-India defeated Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) by seven wickets. Chasing 119, Air-India lost three wickets, but Dinesh Kaarthick's unbeaten 62 (47b, 3x4, 1x6) and his unfinished 92-run fourth-wicket partnership with S. Sriram (30 n.o.) took it home in 17.3 overs.

Man of the match Kaarthick played the big shots with a six off Rohan Gavaskar being the pick while Sriram picked the singles to keep the target firmly within reach.

Earlier, CAB failed to get a start as seamers R.P. Singh and Siddharth Trivedi struck in tandem. And to make it worse, Rohan Gavaskar got run out to leave CAB at 39 for four in eight overs.The innings had a brief revival through skipper Deep Dasgupta (30) and Manoj Tiwary (25) before Air India captain Suresh Raina's grabbed three wickets and restricted CAB to 118 for eight in 20 overs.

The scores:

CAB 118 for eight in 20 overs (D. Dasgupta 30, M. Tewari 25, S. Raina three for 13, R.P. Singh two for 16, S. Trivedi two for 24) lost to Air-India 119 for three in 17.3 overs (D. Kaarthick 62 n.o., S. Sriram 30 n.o.).

NSW 97 for nine in 20 overs (D. Smith 27, S. Raina two for 12) lost to Air-India 100 for three in 19.1 overs (S. Raina 57 n.o., N. Ojha 27, J. Krejza two for 13).

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