Irani stars in England win

Irani celebrates as Ajay Ratra is caught behind

NatWest Series, The Oval
India 165-9 (29.1 of 32 overs) lost to England 229-8 by 64 runs

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Pictures from the Oval

Ronnie Irani, who had produced solid if unspectacular performances for his country to date in the series, took five wickets and hit a rapid 50 in an excellent display by England.

It was the second time in the series that England had been forced to shoehorn a match into a 32-overs-a-side contest.

On the first occasion, at Headingley, Sanath Jayausriya's brilliant century was eclipsed by superb hitting from all England's players as they snatched a win at the death.

But in this match, England were on top from the moment Irani came on to dismiss Virender Sehwag in his first over.

Irani hit two fours and one six in his innings

Sehwag had hit 46 off 41 balls and was just getting into his stride when Irani induced him to edge a leg-cutter to Alec Stewart, who was standing up to the stumps.

Stewart had a brilliant match with the gloves, adding a stumping and two further catches.

When Irani grabbed his second wicket in the 18th over, India were 100-4 and beginning to see their required run rate mount to difficult proportions.

But the very next over, Sachin Tendulkar fired three classy boundaries off Andrew Flintoff and India knew they still had a chance if anyone could stay with him.

But there was no way Irani could stay out of the action.

His penultimate over saw the back of India's last recognised batsman, Mohammad Kaif, and he followed up with two more wickets in his last over.

At that point, Tendulkar seemed to give up on his team, and tamely edged a drive behind off Matthew Hoggard to fall for 36, made off just 29 balls.

Flintoff's knock was crucial for the England cause

There was no way back for India, though oddly their last wicket pair put on 38, their best partnership of the match.

Sourav Ganguly won the toss and electd to field when the skies finally cleared to allow play to start at 1445 BST.

India's wicket-keeper/batsman Rahul Dravid was troubled by a pulled muscle and was replaced by Ajay Ratra, while VVS Laxman returned for Dinesh Mongia.

For England, Matthew Hoggard replaced Jeremy Snape from the team beaten by Sri Lanka on Sunday.

England's innings featured a fine stand of 76 between Flintoff (51) and Irani (53), with Flintoff's runs taking just 38 deliveries.

Michael Vaughan weighed in with a crucial 30 off just 17 balls, while Darren Gough hit the last ball of the innings for six.

Zaheer Khan took three wickets for India.

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England: M E Trescothick, N V Knight, N Hussain (Capt), M P Vaughan, A J Stewart (Wkt), A Flintoff, R Irani, P D Collingwood, M J Hoggard, A J Tudor, D Gough.

India: S C Ganguly (Capt), V Sehwag, V V S Laxman, S R Tendulkar, A Ratra (Wkt), Yuvraj Singh, M Kaif, A B Agarkar, A Kumble, Z Khan A Nehra.

Umpires: SA Bucknor (West Indies) and P Willey. Third umpire: NA Mallender. Match referee: M Procter (South Africa).