India suffered a blow in the seventh match of the Commonwealth Bank Series by 110 runs as Ben Hilfenhaus and Brett Lee vanished their top order batting.
Australia smashed 288 runs for the loss of five wickets in the allotted quota of 50 overs and the Indian innings was folded back at 178 runs with 6.3 overs to spare.
Hilfenhaus was declared ‘Player of the match’ with his match winning performance for grabbing five wickets which was his career best in the One Day Internationals.
The encounter took place at Brisbane Cricket Ground, Woolloongabba, Brisbane on February 19, 2012.
Earlier, the stand in Captain of Australia, Ricky Ponting, won the toss and sent his batsmen in to take their turn first. Their openers, Matthew Wade and David Warner initiated the innings and lady luck assisted them as Wade was dropped on the second ball of the day by Rohit Sharma off Zaheer Khan when he had not opened his innings.
Warner attacked Zaheer in the 9th over of the innings by dispatching two fours and a six and first fifty was achieved in the next over. India got first success when the hard hitting Warner was gone after scoring 43 runs. The first wicket provided a solid foundation by contributing 70 runs as Ponting failed once again with the bat and scored just seven runs. Wade was gone after scoring 45 runs and three wickets were lost for 117 runs in 27.4 overs.
Peter Forrest and Michael Hussey took challenge of the rival bowling as the later got a lucky break when he was dropped at 32 runs by Umesh Yadav off Zaheer. The duo shared 100 runs partnership for the fourth wicket as Hussey departed for 59 and Forrest on 52 runs. David Hussey and Daniel Christian shared a quick fired unbroken partnership of 65 runs in the last six overs while remaining unbeaten on 26 and 30 runs respectively. The Kangaroos piled up 288 runs by the closure of the 50th over with five wickets still in hand.
Irfan Pathan was the supreme bowler with three wickets as Zaheer and Rohit Sharma shared one wicket each.
The Aussie bowlers took command at the start of the Indian innings as Hilfenhaus and the recharged Lee broke the back of their batting by grasping four top order batsmen for just 36 runs in 10.3 overs. Gautam Gambhir, Sachin Tendulkar, the in-form Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma were gone for 5, 3, 12 and 0 respectively.
Suresh Raina and MS Dhoni tried to halt the attack by adding 46 runs for the fifth wicket when Raina was gone for 28 runs. Dhoni exhibited a solo fight as the wickets kept on crumbling at the other end as he became the seventh victim after scoring 56 runs. The tail surrendered once again and the whole team was sent back to the pavilion for 178 runs in 43.3 overs.
Hilfenhaus was the star performer with five wickets, Lee held three as Christian and Mitchell Starc shared one wicket each.
Australia won the match meticulously by a huge margin of 110 runs and earned bonus point as well. The Kangaroos are heading the table with 14 points after five matches, the Blue Shirts follows while earning 10 in the same encounters as Sri Lanka is at the bottom after securing 7 from four matches.
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