India V England T20 At Kolkata: Pietersen, Finn Guide England To Maiden Win

Kevin Pietersen’s half-century won him the man of the match, but it was Steven Finn’s timely jolts that restricted India to chase down a smallish total in the one-off T20I.

Played in front of another relatively empty Eden Gardens in Kolkata, the pair combined well to lead the tourists to their only win of the tour.

A target of 121 could have turned tricky on a track where the ball gripped and turned from the start. Slower balls were the order of the day and the ball required belting while timing it seemingly required oodles of fortune.

Pietersen, having missed the fifth ODI at the same ground to a fractured finger, could have easily been rested for this encounter. England would be thanking their stars he didn’t, because his batting against the stifling Indian spinners proved to be the difference between the two sides.

He refused being dictated to and made the Indians pay for an early dropped chance by Suresh Raina. Pietersen was on one at that time.

A switch-hit off Yusuf Pathan that went the distance in the seventh set the tone for a 39-ball 53 that also included two other sixes and five boundaries. Pathan bore most of the brunt of the rest of his fury, conceding 34 from his three overs while Praveen Kumar, who made a belated appearance with the ball in the 10^th over was smashed for a couple to the fence.

At the other end, Samit Patel, promoted to the number four position, did his bit in absorbing the pressure. It was an understated innings of 21, but one that allowed Pietersen to play as freely as he did.

Despite Suresh Raina and Virat Kohli picking both these batsmen up towards the end, there wasn’t much fuel left in the Indian tanks. England were steered home by Ravi Bopara (14*) with eight balls to spare.

This after England had only crawled to 28 for one at the end of the six overs and suddenly, 121 looked like a defendable score.

Craig Kieswetter’s confidence pulled him through to a couple of fours but Ravindra Jadeja fooled him into spooning a catch to mid-off.

Later, Alex Hales, who had made his T20I debut earlier this year against India, with a duck to his name, was found wanting on the rugged pitch.

Earlier, in the lead-up to this T20I game, the Indian captain MS Dhoni had observed that the Eden Gardens had an ugly-looking. Curator Prabir Mukherjee had been anything but pleased and retorted back saying, “Pitches do not score runs, batsmen do!”

While it was reported in the media that the two had patched up after this verbal feud, the Eden Gardens track would have hardly provided any relief for the Indian captain. Such was its abrasive nature that by the time Bopara came on to bowl in the 15^th over of the Indian, the ball had begun to reverse swing.

And for most part of the first 15 overs as well, stroke-play was an objective in futility.

Picture this. Dhoni, whose ODI series had seen him score more than 200 runs without getting dismissed, found the going so difficult that he failed to clear the in-field. For the first 24 balls that he batted, there was an uncharacteristic tension associated and his general demeanour was that of a captain grumpy than cool.

He hit no boundary and more vitally, for the first time this tour, the confidence in his own batting ability seemed missing. No doubt that the pitch had its part to play.

Then off the 25^th ball Dhoni contered, he launched it with his typical, quicksilver-like bat-speed that got him a six and India to a score of 120 but a ball later, Dhoni was run-out attempting an improbable single.

England would have gone back into the hut, thinking of it as a good omen to have him dismissed for the first ever time this sojourn to India.

Earlier, most Indian batsmen had failed to make much sense of the track either. Virat Kohli placed a boundary through the mid-wicket region to open his account. However, it was on either side of the shot that Craig Kieswetter displayed wicket-keeping skills totally contrary to what has been on show throughout the tour.

Both the Indian openers, Robin Uthappa and Ajinkya Rahane edged the ball behind where Kieswetter flew across to his right to come up with stunning catches.

When the ODI series’ highest-scorer Kohli was dismissed in the sixth over, picking up Alex Hales on the mid-wicket boundary off a pull off Tim Bresnan, India looked to have gone nowhere at 26 for three.

Suresh Raina partnered with Manoj Tiwary to turn things around for India.

Raina established himself on the crease with a big eighth over that pulled the run-rate over six for the first time in the game. Graeme Swann’s poor tour of India with the ball continued as Raina and Tiwary took him for 16 runs and a momentum switch looked likely at this stage.

Tiwary, it must be said, did not look at ease on the crease and for most part, failed to connect the ball in the middle, a malady that later afflicted the captain as well. Samit Patel got one to go through his defences, after having conceded only 13 off his first 2.3 overs.

Things began to go wrong for India soon after this when Finn was reintroduced into the attack.

First Raina, who had tapped Finn for a six in his previous spell, failed to cut the now-soft ball over the point fielder and Jonny Bairstow snaffled an easy one. Then, Ravindra Jadeja’s angular bat to the first ball he faced only managed to guide the ball back on to his stumps.

From then on, despite the presence of arguably two of the most powerful hitters in Indian cricket, Dhoni and Yusuf Pathan, the run-rate kept plummeting as timing the ball became more and more difficult. Pathan’s arduous stay was ended by a Bopara’s reversing delivery and he uprooted his second in as many overs when Praveen Kumar played all over a similar ball.

The late Dhoni six got India to only 120, a decent total if the conditions were to remain the same. But with the late dew coming down and Pietersen in no mood to let his fractured finger come in the way of a juicy half-century, India were left ruing their poor start.