Champions Trophy 2009: Rain hurts India hopes
India’s chances of qualifying for the Champions Trophy semi-final suffered a fatal blow after their crucial Group A match against Australia was called off due to heavy rains at the SuperSport Park in Centurian on Monday.
Heavy rains played spoilsport in a must-win game for India. It all now boils down to Wednesday, where Australia should lose to Pakistan and India beat West Indies. A win for Australia would knockout India. India will first need to defeat West Indies on Wednesday while hoping Australia lose to Pakistan, who have qualified as a result of tonight’s result. MS Dhoni’s side’s hopes, however, are complicated by a vastly inferior run rate with Australia (+1.000) some way ahead of India (-1.080).
Only 42.3 overs were possible in the Group A clash with Ricky Ponting’s side amassing 234 for four thanks largely to half centuries from Tim Paine (56), Michael Hussey (67) and the captain himself, who made 65. Cameron White was unbeaten on 35 and Callum Ferguson on two. Australia lost an early wicket when Shane Watson pulled left-arm seamer Ashish Nehra to Harbhajan Singh at mid-wicket.
Ponting and Paine then steadied the innings with an 84-run stand for the second wicket, gathering runs comfortably against both pace and spin. Paine was more aggressive than his captain, once pulling seamer Ishant Sharma for a six and also hitting seven fours in his 58-ball knock. His flourish ended when he was caught by Harbhajan off leg-spinner Amit Mishra.
Australia Innings
| Runs | Balls | 4s | 6s | |||
| S Watson | c Harbhajan | b Nehra | 0 | 7 | 0 | 0 |
| Paine | c Harbhajan | b Mishra | 56 | 58 | 7 | 1 |
| Ponting | run out | 65 | 88 | 4 | 1 | |
| M Hussey | c Tendulkar | b I Sharma | 67 | 65 | 5 | 0 |
| C White | not out | 35 | 30 | 2 | 1 | |
| Ferguson | not out | 2 | 7 | 0 | 0 | |
| Extras | 7w 1b 1lb | 9 | ||||
| Total | for 4 | 234 | (42.3 ovs) | |||
|
|