DLF League

Sunday 09, November 2008

An unbeaten century from Andrew Flintoff provided the foundation for England’s 122-run victory over Mumbai at the Brabourne Stadium. Flintoff’s 85-ball 100 featured 12 boundaries and three maximums, and alongside Owais Shah, who made 83, helped add 133 for England’s fourth wicket.

Mumbai skipper Nilesh Kulkarni won the toss and invited the tourists to bat, and he was rewarded when Vineet Sinha castled Matt Prior with just 22 on the board. Ian Bell (58) and Shah then soaked up the early pressure, using their feet against the spinners and running hard between the wickets, but Bell eventually departed, stumped off the bowling of Vikrant Yeligati after one advance too many, and when England captain Kevin Pietersen quickly followed, nicking behind off his opposite number, Mumbai looked firmly in contention.

However, Flintoff and Shah combined to good effect, and although Shah fell with five overs still to go, some explosive hitting from Flintoff and Paul Collingwood (22 from 16 balls) helped boost the England total to an imposing 297-4 from their 50 overs.

In response, Mumbai lost opener Rohan Bagade early, edging a Jimmy Anderson out-swinger to Flintoff at first slip, but then a series of stubborn partnerships frustrated the England bowlers. Abhijit Shetye’s watchful 50, with support from Sushant Marathe (36) and Paul Valthaty (25), displayed admirable discipline, but runs proved difficult to come by and each eventually perished attempting to up the scoring, taking with them went any realistic hope Mumbai had of chasing down the English total.

Anderson was comfortably England’s most successful bowler, working his way through the Mumbai top-order, but Pietersen clearly wanted to give his entire attack a workout, employing eight bowlers in total. Samit Patel also picked up two wickets with his left-arm spin, but whilst England’s bowlers were economical they struggled to engineer breakthroughs and allowed Mumbai to battle through to 175-8 from their full complement of overs.

England next take on a Mumbai XI on Tuesday before departing for Rajkot for the first one-day international on November 14.

England XI 297-4 (A Flintoff 100*, OA Shah 83, IR Bell 58); Mumbai 175-8 (AM Shetye 50; JM Anderson 3-15, SR Patel 2-38). England won by 122 runs.