Yuvraj and Ganguly steer shaky India to six-wicket win against Kenya

Kenya 225-6 India 226-4 India win by six wickets

In the end it was an inspired innings of 58 not out in 64 balls by Yuvraj Singh that took the tension out of the evening at Newlands and India to victory over Kenya in the first of their matches in the Super Six stage of the World Cup here yesterday.

Chasing 226 to win, India lost their first three wickets for 24 including that of Sachin Tendulkar in the first 10 overs of their innings and looked then as if they were heading for an astonishing defeat. Saurav Ganguly, their captain, was desperately close to being caught at square leg soon after he came in when he mis-hit a pull although the fielder, Tony Suji, never got a hand to the ball. He struggled for the first half an hour of his innings before hitting Thomas Odoyo for three fours in one over which settled him down and he went on to complete his 21st one-day international century.

At the other end he had the solid support of Rahul Dravid. These two took the score to 98 for 3 after 25 overs, at which point the Kenyan captain, Steve Tikolo, turned to his leg spinner, Collins Obuya, whose 5 for 24 had destroyed Sri Lanka in Nairobi.

Obuya at once settled into a tidy length and line and in his third over Dravid tried to play him to leg and succeeded only in pushing a simple catch back to the bowler off the edge of the bat. He had put on 84 with Ganguly. Yuvraj now strode out to join Ganguly and within minutes he had changed the complexion of the game.

Yuvraj has a wide range of strokes which are both withering and graceful that he places into the gaps with effortless ease. He frequently made room to cut the leg spinner against the spin and was clever in the way he continually pushed the ball into the gaps for singles. He took a lot of the pressure off Ganguly too, and suddenly India who had been wanting runs at more than six an over now found that they were wanting not much more than five and the job was virtually done.

The one anxious moment for India came when Yuvraj tried to cut Obuya and survived an extremely confident appeal for a catch behind and that was really the end of it as far as Kenya were concerned. But they had still shown that they are a most capable side who are well versed in all the major skills of the game and were in no way outclassed. The Zimbabweans will not be greatly looking forward to their encounter with Kenya next week in Bloemfontein.

In the first part of the day, Kenya were given a splendid start by Kennedy Otieno and Ravindu Shah who put on 75 for the first wicket in 21 overs.