The Hindu : India clips Kiwis' wings

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Mar 15, 2003

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India clips Kiwis' wings

By Our Special Correspondent

Mohd Kaif and Rahul Dravid celebrate after India's win.

Centurion March 14. Words and gestures don't heal wounds; victories do. And the Indian team, already assured of a semifinal place in the cricket World Cup, overcame a disastrous start to prove a point against New Zealand on Friday and stretch its winning run in the tournament to seven matches.

Chasing 147 after a brilliant performance by Zaheer Khan, who returned figures of four for 42, India lost three quick wickets, including that of Sachin Tendulkar, with just 21 runs on the board. But Mohammed Kaif (68) and Rahul Dravid (53), who was dropped by McCullum when on one, went on to make light of the challenge. India romped home by seven wickets.

After a war of words between the New Zealand captain, Stephen Fleming and Sourav Ganguly over the last two days, the victory must have tasted sweet for the Indians who had a nightmarish time in New Zealand before the World Cup, losing two Test matches and five out of seven one-day internationals on greenish made-to-order pitches.India, which has won eight of nine matches in the tournament — its only defeat came against Australia in the preliminary league — is scheduled to play Kenya in a day-night semifinal in Durban while New Zealand's fate will be decided by the result of the match between Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe on Saturday. New Zealand has eight points and can still go through to the last four if Zimbabwe upsets Sri Lanka, which has 7.5 points. India finished with 20 points.

Zaheer creates history

PTI reports:

Zaheer Khan, the man of the match, today created history by becoming the quickest Indian to claim 100 wickets in one-day internationals. He achieved the landmark when he castled Brendon McCullum. Zaheer, who has taken his wickets tally to 101 in 65 matches, eclipsed the record of teammate, Ajit Agarkar who had reached the 100-wicket milestone in 67 one-day matches.

The left-handed bowler said after the innings that he was happy to be among wickets with some good bowling performances. ``I was the one who was not bowling the best in the tournament. I am happy to be among wickets today. It is a great feeling to have reached the 100-wicket milestone. It is a great moment in my career,'' he said.

The four wickets made Zaheer Khan the joint leading wicket taker for his side in this edition of the World Cup with 15 wickets. He shares the place with veteran Javagal Srinath. He also equalled his career-best bowling performance today, having claimed an identical 4-42 against Zimbabwe in 2001.

``We lost a couple of early wickets, but it's good to see that somebody can come up and win the game for you,'' said Sourav Ganguly. ``I said before the tournament that we've got a few match winners and they're doing the job.''

``We were splendid in the field; the fielding, the bowling, it was fantastic,'' Ganguly said, praising his seam bowlers. ``It's great to see the way they've turned up — they run up and bowl quick.''

``It was a poor performance batting wise, and we were never in the game,'' said New Zealand skipper, Stephen Fleming. ``It was a good wicket. If anything, it would have favoured us if we'd got a score on the board and bowled later on in the day, (when) it would have got lower and slower. But 146 wasn't going to cut it.'' ``We've still an outside chance I guess,'' said Fleming. ``It's disappointing it has to come to that, (but) good luck to Zimbabwe.''

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