News: Oz beat India by 24 runs, level series

Cricdude Staff

The efforts India made to restrict Australia to 250 in the first innings after having won the toss went in vain as they lost to the visitors by 24 runs at the PCA stadium in Mohali on Monday in the fourth ODI of the seven match Hero Honda series. Aussies are now at par with India with this win reaching a score of 2-2.

It seemed that the Indian bowlers had returned to power and the batsmen would follow their suite but it was not known that they would be suffering the jolt as they come down batting on the pitch that seemed to be affected by dew in the later half.

Though openers Virender Sehwag and Sachin Tendulkar played a fantastic innings scoring a partnership of 40 runs but Australia got rid of in-form Sehwag who hit seven fours during his knock of 30 runs from 19 balls as Bollinger sent him back to the pavilion.

After Sehwag, it seemed that Tendulkar would handle the responsibility well as he was playing cautiously and hitting some big shots but was declared lbw by Nathan Hauritz, just when he was seven runs shot to his record of completing 17,000 ODI runs.

However, the partnerships that were successful in the previous three matches could not retain their success rate at Mohali. Yuvraj Singh and MS Dhoni who lead India to a fabulous victory in the previous match could not do much in this match as Yuvraj gave away his wicket after being declared run out. The duo Harbhajan Singh and Praveen Singh also could not repeat the magic as Bhajji fell prey to a Shane Watson delivery giving him an easy catch. After Harbhajan, it was Praveen Kumar who was seen walking back to the pavilion as Watson came into action yet again.

Earlier Aussies lost seven quick wickets within last 11 overs as the Indian spinners and the pacers teamed up to ruin Australia's batting rhythm thus restricting them at 250 in 49.2 overs.

Openers Shane Watson, Shaun Marsh and skipper Ricky Ponting looked rather disappointed with their failure to strike a successful partnership between any of them. There were as many as four run-outs including that of Ponting, White, Manou and Bollinger in the Aussie side.

After the middle overs, while Yuvraj Singh dismissed the threatening Mike Hussey, Harbhajan Singh dismissed Henriques and Australia lost its fifth wicket standing at 217/5. Camroon White was the next one to be dismissed as he sacrificed his wicket for a run out off Nehra's delivery.

Just when Australia seemed settled with Mitchell Johnson batting on the other end with Graham Manou, Nehra came to rescue yet again dismissing Johnson. The next batsman to be dismissed was Peter Siddle yet again by Nehra wrapping up the Australia innings within 49.2 overs.