Tendulkar, Dravid explode louder than H-Bombs

Tendulkar was in a murderous mood in the last 10 overs. Medium-pacer Drumm, who replaced the injured Dion Nash, was the worst sufferer. In the 49th over, Tendulkar ran up a sequence of 6, 4, 4, 4. He was on 182 when Chris Cairns began the last over of the innings, but Tendulkar could manage only four runs.

Dravid set the tone of the Indian innings by scoring three fours off Cairns in the fifth over. The elegant batsman judged the wicket well and majestically powered his way to glory.

Skipper Stephen Fleming remained a helpless spectator as were his bowlers. Cairns went for 73 runs, O’Connor conceded 61, Drumm was plundered for 85 and newcomer Styris gave away 58 runs.

Under pressure of reaching the mammoth target at 7.54 runs per over, New Zealand not repeat their Rajkot batting effort.

Venkatesh Prasad got rid of Craig Spearman while Javagal Srinath dismissed Nathan Astle to snuff out any Kiwis challenge. It was only the last wicket pair which delayed the inevitable.

Team means more than records: Speaking at the post-match conference, Indian skipper Tendulkar said he was happy with the win. “Our bowlers did a good job.” Saying that he was happy with his batting performance, he also had a word of praise for Dravid. “He played some improvised shots that helped us score at a brisk pace.”

When asked about his personal achievement of surpassing Ganguly’s 183, he said he became aware of it only when Ajay (Jadeja) mentioned it in the 49th over. “I was only worried about the team’s total. Records are there to be broken. Even my record may be shattered tomorrow by someone,” he said philosophically.

New Zealand skipper Stephen Fleming was all grace in defeat. While giving credit to the hosts for their wonderful performance, he was hopeful of doing well in the remaining three matches. “The series is only half way through. It is still wide open,” he said. He was all praise for Tendulkar and Dravid who, he said, set exemplary batsmanship. Regarding the replacement for Nash, he said “Alex Taite will be joining the team for the third one-dayer”.

When asked about his opinion about the outfield, he humourously said, “For most of the time we were fielding in the pickets so the outfield did not bother us." He added, "We bowled badly in the slog overs, and the hot weather compounded our problems.”

Scoreboard
India
Saurav Ganguly run out (O’Connor) (11m, 4b) 4
Sachin Tendulkar not out (221m, 151b, 19×4, 4×6) 186
Rahul Dravid c Fleming b Cairns (196m, 153b, 15×4, 2×6) 153
Ajay Jadeja not out (10m, 4b) 2
Extras (b5, lb18, w3, nb15) 31
Total (for 2 wickets, in 50 overs) 376
Fall of wickets: 1-10 (Ganguly, 1.5), 2-341 (Dravid, 48)
Bowling: Cairns 10-0-73-1, O’Connor 7-0-61-0, Drumm 9-0-85-0, Styris 10-0-58-0, Harris 3-0-27-0, Astle 3-0-20-0, Vettori 8-0-39-0

New Zealand
C Spearman c Tendulkar b Prasad (18m, 16b, 2×4) 15
Nathan Astle c Jadeja b Srinath (25m, 11b) 9
A Parore st MSK Prasad b Bharadwaj (73m, 38b, 3×4, 1×6) 39
Roger Twose lbw Chopra (35m, 34b, 4×4) 28
Stephen Fleming c Srinath b Kumble(24m, 18b, 2×4) 12
Chris Cairns run out (Bharadwaj) (27m, 15b, 3×4) 13
Chris Harris c Chopra b Kumble (4m, 3b) 2
S Styris c MSK Prasad b V Prasad (58m, 52b, 6×4) 43
Daniel Vettori run out (Srinath) (9m, 8b) 5
Shane O’Connor run out (Srinath) (7m, 6b) 1
Chris Drumm not out (38m, 20b) 7
Extras (lb 8, w 12, nb 8) 28
Total (all out in 33.1 overs) 202
Fall of wickets: 1-23 (Spearman, 3.3), 2-37 (Astle, 4.3), 3-67 (9.1, Twose), 4-101 (Fleming, 14.3), 5-120 (Parore 17.5), 6-127 (Harris 18.5), 7-140 (Cairns, 20.4), 8-152 (Vettori, 23), 9-156 (O’Connor, 25.1)
Bowling: Srinath 6-0-37-1, Prasad 5.1-0-38-2, Chopra 7-0-38-1, Kumble 10-0-39-2, Bharadwaj 4-0-27-1, Ganguly 1-0-15-0
Result: Indian won by 174 runs
Man of the match: Sachin Tendulkar

The Indian Bull Run
Milestones from the second India-NZ ODI at Hyderabad

The 331-run second wicket partnership between skipper Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid is the highest ever by any country for any wicket in One-Day Internationals (ODIs). The partnership erased the previous ODI World record of 318 for any wicket between Saurav Ganguly and Dravid against Sri Lanka at Taunton in the last World Cup