Daily Cricket News

Yuvraj stars in India's win over Netherlands

New Delhi: Yuvraj Singh once again starred with both bat and ball as India beat the Netherlands by five wickets in a World Cup Group B clash at New Delhi on Wednesday.

Chasing a victory target of 190, Yuvraj who brought up 100 ODI wickets earlier in the day played a crucial innings of 51 not out to steer India to a well fought win along with skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni who remained unbeaten on 19.

Virender Sehwag and Sachin Tendulkar went after the Dutch bowling right from the word go after the Netherlands disappointed with the bat to be bowled out for 189.

The dynamic duo put on 69 runs before left arm spinner Pieter Seelaar had Sehwag caught by Alexei Kervezee for 39 (26) as India lost their first wicket in the 8th over.

Seelaar was not done yet and struck again with the prized wickets of Sachin Tendulkar (27) and Yusuf Pathan (11) who was sent up the order as India slumped to 82/3.

Virat Kohli (12) was bowled by Dutch skipper Peter Borren before Gautam Gambhir and Yuvraj Singh added 40 runs for the 5th wicket.

However, just when the partnership seemed to be blossoming Gambhir was knocked over by Mudassar Bukhari as India were reduced to 139/5.

There were no further jitters for Team India as the required 51 runs were knocked over with ease by Yuvraj and Dhoni.

Earlier, Zaheer Khan grabbed three wickets and Yuvraj Singh picked up his 100th ODI scalp as the Netherlands were bowled out for 189 in 46.4 overs after Dutch skipper Peter Borren won the toss and elected to bat first.

Mudassar Bukhari was bowled by Zaheer for 21 after Borren smashed a quickfire 38 of 36 balls as the Dutch failed to bat out their quota of 50 overs.

Netherlands got off to a promising start as openers Eric Szwarczynski and Wesley Barresi took their side's total to 56 in the 16th over before Szwarczynski was bowled by Piyush Chawla for 28.

Barresi fell soon after for 26 as India's new found all-rounder Yuvraj brought up 100 wickets in his one day international career.

There was a procession of wickets after that as the Indian spinners came into their own and the Dutch failed to break the shackles which led to batsmen being dismissed at regular intervals.

The Netherlands were in deep trouble at 127/7 before skipper Borren and Bukhari took the total near the 200 mark but both then fell to Zaheer who ended up with figures of 3/20.