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Cricket

India have last laugh over Australia with CB Series win

04/03/2008

A 91 from Sachin Tendulkar and four crucial wickets from Praveen Kumar helped India beat Australia by nine runs to win the CB Series final 2-0.

The tourists ended an acrimonious tour with a tense victory in Brisbane, with Australia always down but never out as James Hopes' 63 gave his side half a chance of a comeback win.

The foundation for India's victory came from the 91-run opening stand between Tendulkar and Robin Uthappa (30), which allowed useful contributions from Yuvraj Singh (38) and Mahendra Dhoni (36) in the middle order.

India haemorrhaged wickets in the final ten overs but managed to advance to 258-9 in their 50 overs, a competitive but not dominant total.

Dhoni's biggest contribution to the match may have been his decision to give Kumar the new ball. The 21-year-old finished with 4-46 after taking the prize wickets of Adam Gilchrist and Ricky Ponting in his first two overs.

The Australians were left on the back foot at 8-2 and were set back further still when Kumar bowled Michael Clarke on 32-3.

But then Andrew Symonds and Matthew Hayden, high-profile combatants in the war of words which has bedeviled the India tour down under, built a 91-run stand which threatened to rebuild the Australian innings.

Their tormentor, Harbhajan Singh, had a hand in both their wickets in the 26th over.

He trapped Symonds lbw for 42 before completing a run-out of Hayden for 55, whipping off the bails after receiving the throw from Yuvraj.

Hopes' 80-ball 63 kept Australia in the chase but, like India before them, the home side struggled to build a lower-order stand.

A six from Hopes in the penultimate over reduced the deficit to 14 runs from seven balls, but two wickets from Irfan Pathan ended Australia's resistance with the score on 249.