New Delhi: India suffered another blow as Mudassar Bukhari dug out Gautam Gambhir’s leg stump, but the hosts seem to be still control of the World Cup Group B game on Wednesday.
India’s plans to end the Kotla carnival early hit a bump after the Dutch sent our classy top order back into the pavilion.
Sehwag, who looked in a hurry to finish off the paltry 190-run target, was the first to go down. Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s plan to give the net run rate a push backfired as India lost Veeru, Sachin and pinchhitter Yusuf Pathan. Orthodox spinner Pieter Seelaar was the one who scalped the biggies.
Virat Kohli was the latest victim after he completely missed to read the line of a fuller from Peter Borren and let it pass his bat to the stumps.
Bengaluru Man-of-the-Match Yuvraj Singh has now joined Gautam Gambhir.
Earlier, Sachin Tendulkar, who gave India a blazing start along with Sehwag, became the first batsman to score 2,000 World Cup runs, reaching the mark by hitting three consecutive fours in front of legions of fans in New Delhi, before he fell going for a big hit.
The placid pitch had little juice in the offering for pacers and was reported to slow down more in the second innings. Earlier, India relied on a pace-spin combination to bowl out the Netherlands for a below-par 189.
Spinners Piyush Chawla and Yuvraj Singh shared four wickets while fast bowler Zaheer Khan grabbed 3-20 after Dutch captain Peter Borren elected to bat before a 30,000 crowd at the Kotla Stadium.
Borren offered the only resistance with a late cameo of 38 runs off 36 balls, with three fours and two sixes, in an otherwise disappointing batting performance by the Netherlands on a placid track.