India stutter before strolling past Netherlands

NEW DELHI (AP):

India clinched a nervy five-wicket victory over Netherlands and moved closer to a place in the World Cup quarter-finals yesterday, but needed a calming half-century from all-rounder Yuvraj Singh to seal the win.

Yuvraj saved the tournament favourites from a precarious position at 99-4, guiding the home nation to 191-5 and past Netherlands' 189 all out for an ultimately comfortable win after the Dutch had given the mighty Indians a scare.

Group B's bottom team had glimpsed one of the biggest shocks at World Cups when left-arm spinner Pieter Seelaar took three wickets in nine balls - dismissing Sachin Tendulkar and Yusuf Pathan in the same over - to rattle the co-hosts.

Virat Kohli was then bowled by Netherlands skipper Peter Borren as India slipped into trouble before Yuvraj led the recovery, to the relief of a large home crowd in Delhi.

Yuvraj swung a four over backward square leg for the winning runs, carrying him to his third half-century of the tournament and second in a row.

Unlikely combination

India won with more than 14 overs to spare and it will now take a highly unlikely combination of results to deny the Indians a place in the knockout stage.

"It's not a bad win," India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni said. "There was a bit of pressure on us in the middle overs with four wickets down. You can say it was an area of concern, but I think overall it is a good experience to have.

"Everybody has had a fair amount of exposure in the World Cup campaign."

Youraj controlled partnerships of 40 with Gautam Gambhir and then an unbroken stand of 52 with Dhoni, as India held off the battling Dutch and sealed a third victory in four matches.

India's spinners had earlier strangled the Netherlands' batsmen on a lifeless pitch as the World Cup co-hosts bowled their opponents out in 46.4 overs.

"It's been a roller-coaster ride today," Netherlands captain Borren said. "It went up and down, up and down and in the end I'm really proud of the guys and the effort we made at defending what wasn't a great score against a fantastic batting line-up.

"We had a chance to win when India were 99-4. It only takes a couple of good moments of cricket there and you're right on top. I think we played some brave cricket."

Slow left-armer Yuvraj took 2-43 for India in another impressive allround effort, passing 100 wickets in one-day internationals. Leg-spinner Piyush Chawla claimed 2-47 as the Dutch were pegged back after a half-century opening stand between Eric Szwarczynski (28) and Wesley Barresi (26).

But Borren topscored with 38 - hitting three fours and two sixes batting at No. 8 - to lift Netherlands to a respectable total with his late-order hitting. Mudassar Bukhari pitched in with two sixes in his 21.

In response, India's fearsome batting line-up had threatened to power to a crushing victory as openers Virender Sehwag and Sachin Tendulkar launched boundaries to all corners of the Kotla stadium.

Rapid runs

Sehwag smacked five fours and two sixes, with 32 of his 39 rapid runs coming from boundaries.

Tendulkar followed suit, launching six perfectly timed fours with cover drives and lofted shots down the ground on his way to 27 off 22 balls.

Already the leading run-scorer at World Cups, Tendulkar passed 2,000 runs at the tournament with the third of three successive fours off Ryan ten Doeschate. But slow left-armer Seelaar brought India's impressive start grinding to a halt with his three strikes in the space of two overs.

When skipper Borren bowled Kohli, sending India to 99-4, the Dutch had a glimpse of a shock, but Yuvraj calmed Indian nerves.

Today, another fancied team, Sri Lanka, play Zimbabwe in front of a partisan Sri Lankan crowd at the new one-day venue of Pallekele, near the mountain city of Kandy.