By Syed Zarir Hussain
Guwahati, Nov 5 (IANS) Pakistan set India a target of 240 to win the first of the five one-day internationals Monday at the Nehru Stadium here.
At the end of the stipulated 50 overs, Pakistan scored 239 for seven with Mohammad Yousuf unbeaten on 83 off 88 balls with seven hits to the fence.
The veteran middle order batsman made most of a reprieve early in his stay to emerge Pakistan’s top scorer.
Choosing to bat first, Pakistan openers Salman Butt and Kamran Akmal negotiated the early overs without any problems, with the wicket playing easy without much bounce or pace.
Irfan Pathan struck in the 11th over of the match, trapping Akmal leg before after the wicketkeeper-batsman had scored 12 runs off 30 balls. Pakistan lost their first wicket with the score on 44.
Butt played some exquisite shots through the covers and was middling the ball well along with Younis Khan before an awful mix-up in the 18th over, Harbhajan Singh’s first of the match.
The ball rolled towards Yuvraj Singh at extra cover off the leading edge of Butt’s bat. The opener started for a quick single but was sent back by Younis, failing to regain his crease as Yuvraj sent an under hand return to Dhoni who broke the stumps. Butt had scored 50 off 57 balls with the help eight fours, his first ODI half century against India.
The two Indian spinners, Harbhajan and Murali Kartik then choked the Pakistan batsmen, giving away just 51 runs between the 18th and 33rd overs.
Both Younis and Mohammad Yousuf tried to accelerate the innings. Yousuf was dropped in the 27th over when he miscued a lofted shot off Kartik but Sourav Ganguly failed to get under the skier. Yousuf had scored only 10 then.
In his attempt to play some big shots against Harbhajan, Younis tried to clear the long-on boundary only to find Irfan Pathan. Younis scored 25 runs off 60 balls with no boundaries.
The fall of the third wicket brought Shahid Afridi to the crease and he provided some momentum to the innings. Afridi hoisted Zaheer over the ropes for the first six of the match in the 35th over.
Afridi and Yousuf added 50 at a run-a-ball for the fourth wicket when Afridi was cleverly stumped by Mahendra Singh Dhoni off the bowling of Sachin Tendulkar. He had made 30 runs off 31 balls, hitting a six and a four.
Tendulkar struck again in his next over, bowling a juicy full toss to Pakistan skipper Shoaib Malik whose mistimed shot went straight to Gautam Gambhir on the deep midwicket fence. Malik made just two runs.
Yousuf, riding his let-off, added 68 runs with Misbah-ul-Haq in nine overs, the sixth wicket partnership being the high point of the innings.
Misbah scored 27 runs off only 26 balls before being caught by Harbhajan off Zaheer. The seventh wicket fell to the last ball when Abdur Rehman was run out with the score at 239.
For India Tendulkar was the most successful bowler with two wickets for 33 runs in his five overs. Zaheer, Pathan and Harbhajan claimed one wicket each.