BV Swagath's Story of the 3rd ODI between India and England at Kanpur on November 20, 2008
India has clinched a hat-trick of wins amidst fading light at the Green Park Stadium in Kanpur. The homeside was clever enough to keep its head cool and work its way to a total that was 16 runs ahead of the Duckworth Lewis Target when bad light inevitably stopped the match at around 4:40 PM. The third ODI had a delayed start of 45 minutes because of the hazy conditions and it was a bizarre situation to see the action get curtailed in the morning and the evening despite the stadium having flood lights that stood up uselessly. The stars of the match were Harbhajan Singh and Virender Sehwag while Yuvraj had no chance of scoring his hat-trick century with England making just 240 on the board.
Toss : England won the toss this time and for the first time were going to bat first in this series. They made a crucial change to their side by including off spinner Graeme Swann instead of Steve Harmison. India on the other hand strengthened its bowling attack by bringing in Ishant Sharma for RP Singh.
England makes a complete mess of a good opening start
The match was curtailed to a 49 overs a side contest with the batting powerplay getting reduced to 4 overs. The first few overs saw the new English opening combination of Ravi Bopara and Ian Bell just allowing the Indian new ball pair of Zaheer and Munaf bowl to their lines. But the slow start blossomed into a promising one as the two right handers played some wristy shots especially through the off side. India was now kept under slight pressure as the two batsmen built up a wonderful platform for the middle order although the pitch and the quick outfield demanded atleast 300 on the board. In the 15th over, Munaf Patel provided the much needed break for his side which came through a 0% shot from Bell, that of trying to steer one down to thirdman and nicking it to the keeper. Bell scored 46 from 47 balls with 8 fours and had out on 79 in 14.3 overs for the first wicket with Bopara. Once the two powerplays were out of the way, MS Dhoni changed the pace of the game by bowling Harbhajan and Yuvraj in tandem which entirely slowed the tempo down.
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