DLF League

Tuesday 11, November 2008

An abject England performance saw England slump to a 124-run defeat against a Mumbai Cricket Association XI at the Brabourne Stadium. Having initially restricted their opponents to 222-7 from their 50 overs, England’s batsmen produced a succession of rash shots and crumbled to seamer Kshemal Waingankar, who finished with figures of 5-37.

With both Ryan Sidebottom and Stuart Broad missing the match due to injury, England entered the match with only three recognised fast bowlers in Andrew Flintoff, Jimmy Anderson and Steve Harmison. Nevertheless, Anderson almost struck in the first over, inducing Paul Valthaty to edge behind only to see Matt Prior spill the chance, but he was eventually rewarded for some probing bowling by dismissing Praful Waghela with just nine runs on the board. Mumbai fought back via an excellent partnership between Valthaty (44) and Sushant Marathe (65), but England continued to take regular wickets before some enterprising hitting from Shoaib Shaikh (37 runs from 35 deliveries) provided useful late acceleration to the innings.

Harmison was England’s most effective bowler, claiming figures of 2-38 off his allotted 10 overs including the crucial wicket of Marathe, whilst Samit Patel also picked up two scalps. At lunch, the England attack will have been relatively pleased with their efforts and confident of mounting a successful run-chase, but they could never have anticipated the disastrous performance from their batting line-up.

Ian Bell was first to depart, edging a wide delivery through to the keeper, and Matt Prior and Kevin Pietersen, both trapped lbw by deliveries that straightened, swiftly followed. Paul Collingwood and Patel shared a 19-run stand, relative riches given the situation, before Collingwood chipped Rajesh Verma to mid-on and Patel handed Waingankar his third wicket to leave England reeling at 33-5.

Matters then went from bad to worse for Pietersen’s side. Flintoff (a centurion in England’s previous match), Ravi Bopara and Luke Wright were all dismissed in quick succession as England plummeted to 55-8. Despite the best efforts of Graeme Swann (24*) and Jimmy Anderson (20), who put on 34 for the final wicket, England were dismissed inside 25 overs to leave them with serious concerns ahead of the first one-day international at Rajkot on November 14.

Mumbai CA XI 227-7 (S Marathe 65, PC Valthaty 44; SJ Harmison 2-38); England XI 98 (K Waingankar 5-37, RG Shaikh 3-35). Mumbai CA XI won by 124 runs.