Captain KP leads from the front

Nov 26 2008

Kevin Pietersen ended England's long wait for a century to guide his side to their most competitive score of the one-day series against India.

The England captain was the last player to reach three figures in a one-day international 14 matches ago when he hit an unbeaten 110 against New Zealand at Chester-le-Street in June.

But Pietersen ended that barren run for his side by hitting an unbeaten 111 off 128 balls, which included 10 fours and a six, to help England record their highest score of the series by reaching 270 for four after being put into bat at the Barabati Stadium.

Both the recalled Alistair Cook and Essex team-mate Ravi Bopara fell inside the first 10 overs with Cook, whose last one-day appearance for England was last summer, chasing a wide delivery from Zaheer Khan which was collected by Sachin Tendulkar at slip in the sixth.

Bopara fell four overs later just two balls after being dropped at extra cover when he forced Zaheer straight to backward point, leaving Pietersen and Paul Collingwood to set the platform for a major total.

The 89-run partnership began slowly but began to accelerate just as Collingwood, without a major score previously in the series, fell for 40 when he drove Harbhajan Singh to long on.

England's hopes of reaching a major total were further undermined when all-rounder Andrew Flintoff fell four balls later, edging Ishant Sharma to slip for a duck.

But Pietersen took command of the situation with new batsman Owais Shah and did not seem unduly troubled when the pair were restricted to just 32 runs from the five overs of batting powerplay.

Pietersen finally reached his seventh one-day international century with three overs remaining, bringing up the landmark off 119 balls, with three overs left to claim England's first one-day international century in India for 14 matches.

Shah provided useful support and contributed an unbeaten 66 off 57 balls towards an unbroken 112-run stand, which helped add 42 from the final five overs and propel England past 250 for the first time in the series.