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| India scamper home to 14-run victory | | | Nagpur Jan 21
Sourav Ganguly marked his comeback with a scintillating 98 as India very nearly lost the plot in the dying stages before scampering home to a thrilling 14-run victory in the first cricket one-dayer against the West Indies here today.
Under enormous pressure to arrest their sliding fortunes in ODIs of late, the hosts rattled up a record 338 for three on a placid track and managed to stop the Caribbeans at 324 for eight to take a 1-0 lead in the four-match series at the VCA stadium.
Shivnarine Chanderpaul cracked an unbeaten 149 off 136 balls and almost took the game away from the hosts in the high-scoring encounter which entered the record books for the highest run aggregate of 662 in an ODI match in India.
The visitors needed 20 runs in Sreesanth's last over but it turned out to be a tough ask as they managed just six much to the relief of a capacity Sunday crowd which witnessed a real batting feast.
It turned out to be a triumphant retrun for comeback man Ganguly who missed his century by a whisker but proved that he still had plenty of cricket left in him, unleashing a barrage of strokes on both sides of the wicket.
Put into bat, India's new left-handed opening combination of Ganguly and Gautam Gambhir (69) provided a flying start with a 144-run partnership while Mahendra Singh Dhoni (62 not out) and Rahul Dravid (54 not out) also chipped in with rollicking knocks.
The two teams will now travel to Cuttack for the second game to be held under floodlights on Wednesday.
Chanderpaul scored his fifth century and opening the innings with Chris Gayle (52), kept the West Indies in the fight till the end but the required run-rate kept climbing steadily and the West Indies fell short in the end.
West Indies seemed in with a very good chance after Chanderpaul and Gayle put on 80-run opening partnership in 12.1 overs. Chanderpaul then partnered with skipper Brian Lara, who made 31 off 23 balls with two sixes, for a quickfire stand of 66 runs in 44 balls.
Tendulkar, utilised as the fifth bowler by Dravid, deceived Lara by bowling wide of his off stump when he saw the rival captain stepping out to loft him for a six and was stumped by Dhoni.
Chanderpaul lost his partners steadily at the other end but mounted an all-out late assault on the Indian medium pacers Ajit Agarkar and S Sreesanth, but finally it all came to nought.
The left-hander stepped up the tempo and took his team close to needing 64 runs in the last five overs. But it all went in vain when requiring 49 off the last three overs, West Indies managed to get 34, mainly because of Chanderpaul's buccaneering innings.
India, who lost to the West Indies 1-4 on their previous bilateral series in the Caribbean and lost 0-4 on the South Africa tour to the home team, thus scored a morale-boosting victory in the lead-up to the March-April World Cup.
Ganguly, coming back into the one-day fold after a gap of 15 months, thrilled the crowd with his strokes before missing what would have been his 23rd century by a whisker through a run-out.
He also put on 144 and 70 runs for the first two wickets with fellow-opener Gautam Gambhir and a subdued Sachin Tendulkar (31) to provide the early stability to the Indian innings.
Consolidating on this strong beginning, skipper Rahul Dravid and Dhoni got involved in a rollicking fourth wicket stand to power India to their best total against the West Indies and fell short of the highest score at this ground by only 12 runs.
India's highest ever against the visitors was 325 for five at Ahmedabad in 2002-03 and the highest at this ground was 350.
The left-handed Bengal stalwart and former skipper, playing his first ODI since the final against New Zealand in the tri-series in Zimababwe in September 2005, exquisitely timed the ball and hit 3 sixes and 11 fours before he was unfortunately run out while scampering for a quick run at the non-striker's end.
Gautam Gambhir , coming in to open the innings in place of out-of-favour Virender Sehwag, made a stylish 69 in 76 balls studded with ten fours. Ganguly and Tendulkar kept the pressure on the West Indies, scoring 70 in 78 balls.
The splendid foundation was taken full advantage of by Dhoni, who blasted 62 off only 42 deliveries with four sixes and three fours. Dravid joined in the party and hit three sixes.
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