Pietersen tries to repair early damage

Nov 26 2008

England suffered two early setbacks as they attempted to halt India's winning run in the fifth match of the one-day series at the Barabati Stadium on Wednesday.

Put into bat, the tourists changed their batting line-up in an attempt to give themselves greater impetus at the top of the order with Alastair Cook recalled at the expense of Ian Bell - dropped after 35 successive matches.

Lancashire seamer James Anderson was also dropped to allow the return of Steve Harmison - but it was captain Kevin Pietersen who provided the drive as his side reached 81 for two after 15 overs.

Essex left-hander Cook, who has not featured in a one-day international since last summer, formed a new opening partnership with county team-mate Ravi Bopara which began promisingly. Cook claimed an early boundary, steering left-arm seamer Zaheer Khan to the third man for four and Bopara followed suit by driving the same bowler down the ground for his first boundary.

But before the pair could begin to dominate, Cook chased a wide delivery from Zaheer and guided the ball straight to Sachin Tendulkar at slip in the sixth over.

New batsman Pietersen showed his intent straight away, hooking all-rounder Irfan Pathan over his head for four and following that with a slash to third man for another four.

While Pietersen was smashing boundaries at one end, Bopara was getting frustrated at his scoring rate at the other and gave a sharp chance to Virender Sehwag at short extra cover on 22 when he drove Zaheer off the front foot.

Bopara failed to exploit his reprieve and with India captain MS Dhoni restricting his ability to score through extra cover with two close-in fielders, he attempted to hit a square drive but picked out Yuvraj Singh at backward point.

His demise persuaded India to take the bowling power-play at the end of that over and their seamers successfully restricted England's strokeplay with only 13 runs being added in the next five overs.

India had also made two changes to their line-up as they chased their fifth successive victory in the series with all-rounder Irfan Pathan replacing seamer Munaf Patel, while Suresh Raina took over from the in-form Gautam Gambhir.