India start well but lose wickets
India opened with the dashing duo of Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag and they started the way they always did – with a flurry of boundaries. The score reached 34 in just 4 overs before the Rawalpindi Express got Tendulkar to nick one to keeper Moin Khan in the fifth over for seven runs.
Laxman then joined Sehwag and the two effortlessly stroked their way forward to take the score to 69 in only the 9th over but Shoaib Akhtar produced another unplayable delivery to send Laxman’s stumps flying and rock the Indian innings.
Sehwag and skipper Saurav Ganguly too followed soon after, dismissed by Mohammad Sami and Abdul Razzaq, respectively, to leave team India in some trouble at 94 for 4. It was just the 13th over and the run rate was over seven, but the fact that they had lost four of their main batsmen meant that the repair work had to be done by the lower order.
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