India off to winning start in ODI series

men put in a much-improved performance to bounce back from the loss in the Twenty20 series and take a 1-0 lead in the five-match one-day series against New Zealand in Napier.
India were asked to bat first in the rain-interrupted match and rattled up a score of 273 for 4 in 38 overs after the first showers lasting over 2 hours led to a reduced match.Virender Sehwag , Dhoni and Suresh Raina all scored half-centuries at a rapid clip and Yusuf Pathan played a brilliant cameo at the end of the innings to peg the Black Caps on the back foot.

Sehwag smashed 11 boundaries and a siz in his 56-balls knock of 77, while Raina blitzed his way to 66 in only 39 balls with five hits to the fence and four over it. Raina and Dhoni, who remained unbeaten on 84, added 110 runs for the fourth wicket in just over 12 overs. However, Sachin Tendulkar (20) and Yuvraj Singh (2) didn't contribute much to the team's cause.

Ian Butler and captain Daniel Vettori were the best of the New Zealand bowlers, and had identical figures of 1-42 in eight over. Kyle Mills, who was returning from injury, was thrashed all over the park and had figures of 7-0-69-0.

The Kiwis needed a good start to their run-chase, but that wasn't to be as Praveen Kumar had Brendon McCullum caught by Harbhajan Singh in the second over with no runs on the board. The same bowler then dismissed Jesse Ryder (11) to leave the Black Caps reeling at 23 for 2 in the eighth over. The impressive pair of Martin Guptill and Ross Taylor (31) then tried to bring their team back in to the game with a partnership of 58 runs in 43 balls for the third wicket, but once the latter was dismissed, the game was all but over the Black Caps.

The second rain interuption took place just as New Zealand lost Grant Elliott's wicket, with the hosts at 111 for 4. On resumption, the target was revised to 216 in 28 overs, and Harbhajan Singh took three wickets in the 24th over to all but win the match for India. Harbhajan dismissed Guptill (64) and Ian Butler off consecutive balls, but Mills denied the off-spinner the hat-trick, but was out in the last ball of that over. In the midst of this fall of wickets, Vettori held one end up and remained unbeaten on 26 as New Zealand finished at 162 for 9 in 28 overs, and India won the match by 53 runs under the Duckworth-Lewis method.

Harbhajan (3-27) and Praveen Kumar (2-28) were the pick of the Indian bowlers, while Zaheer Khan, Yuvraj Singh and Yusuf Pathan chipped in with a wicket each.