England's hopes of avoiding a 5-0 whitewash were left in tatters following a dramatic mid-innings collapse in the fifth and final ODI against India at Kolkata. Chasing 272 for victory, they were given a flying start by Alastair Cook and Craig Kieswetter, who added 129 for the first wicket in 20.1 overs, but India hit back with a vengeance, claiming five wickets for 12 runs in 32 legitimate deliveries.
With 24 overs of the innings remaining, England were still technically in with a shout, needing another 131 runs from 144 balls with five wickets in hand. However, with the spinners Ravindra Jadeja and R Ashwin putting the same stranglehold on the final match that they had produced in the first at Hyderabad, England found themselved drowning in a sea of dot balls and desperate swipes.
For the first two-fifths of England's innings, however, their progress could hardly have been more serene. Cook and Kieswetter saved their best performances of the series for the very last gasp, and after easing into their evening's work, they were consistently 20 runs ahead of the required rate. Kieswetter brought up his half-century from 49 balls - and England's 100 with it - with a savage carve through the covers off Varun Aaron, and Cook was scarcely any tardier, reaching his own milestone from 51.
The innings, however, was derailed by the extra pace of Aaron, who came round the wicket to extract Cook's off stump for 60 from 61 balls - the exact same score he had managed in the first match at Hyderabad. Eight balls later, Kieswetter followed suit for a run-a-ball 63, as Jadeja pinned him lbw on the front foot, and suddenly the innings was wide open.
Bell, playing in his first match of the series after Kevin Pietersen had been ruled out with a chipped bone in his thumb, scratched around for 2 from six balls before snicking Ashwin to the keeper, and three balls later, all hope had been truly lost when Jonathan Trott, England's likeliest middle-order ballast, pushed loosely at Jadeja and edged a simple chance to slip for 5.
In Jadeja's next over, England's innings went even further off-track, as the overawed Jonny Bairstow tried to hit his way out of trouble but instead skidded a thick outside edge to Ajinkya Rahane at backward point. Samit Patel and Ravi Bopara were left to clear up the damage, but India's total seemed an awfully long way away.
50 overs India 271 for 8 (Dhoni 75*) v England
Steven Finn continued his impressive personal performance in an otherwise abject England campaign, but another scruffy fielding performance undermined his best efforts as India, led inevitably by MS Dhoni, were allowed to recover from a major mid-innings wobble to post a very healthy 271 for 8 in the fifth and final ODI at Kolkata.
Dhoni's unbeaten 75 from 69 balls lifted their total from a dicey 123 for 4, and took his recent tally to 330 runs without dismissal in his past six ODI innings - an Indian record. It was his second half-century of the current series and his sixth in his past seven against England, in which time he has been extracted just the once, for 69 in the third of the five-match series at The Oval in September.
After winning the toss for the fourth match in a row, Alastair Cook this time chose to bowl first in muggy conditions at Eden Gardens, but in front of a sparsely populated stadium, England's initial efforts were flat in the extreme. Basic errors littered England's play, with Gautam Gambhir gifted two boundaries as, first, the slip cordon and, then, Stuart Meaker at third man let the ball roll through their grasp.
At the other end, Ajinkya Rahane continued his impressively fluent start to international cricket with six fours in a 61-ball innings of 42, and at 71 for 0 after 15 overs, India's hopes of exacting instant retribution for their Test-series whitewash in the summer were looking extremely rosy. The only real chance in that period was a life for Gambhir on 25, who edged Meaker high to Craig Kieswetter's left, and away for four as the keeper mistimed his leap.
However, the advent of the bowling Powerplay brought the free scoring to a dramatic halt, as India scraped together 10 runs in the next five overs for the loss of three key wickets. After one over from Swann, Cook reverted to his frontline seamers, Tim Bresnan and Finn, who responded with a double-wicket maiden to lift his team-mates' flagging morale.
First to go was Gambhir for 38, in near-identical fashion to his dismissal by Finn at Mumbai, as a lifting delivery outside off nipped off the inside edge and into the stumps. Then, after welcoming Virat Kohli with a series of excellent deliveries in the channel outside off, he bowled him with a final-ball beauty that zipped off the seam and crashed into off stump as the batsman offered no stroke.
Four balls and no runs later, and Bresnan was into the act as well, as Kieswetter atoned for his earlier miss with a soaring leap to his right to cling on to a flying edge. A second consecutive maiden for Finn was then followed by an equally frugal first over from Ravi Bopara, and India's collapse should have been four wickets for one run in 25 balls when Swann at slip dropped his clanger.
Suitably liberated, Raina followed up with a slashing cut for four in an over that went for 10, and with the newly recalled Manoj Tiwary settling into an aggressive but comfortable rhythm at the other end, England's brief bubble of optimism looked in danger of bursting. The pair added 42 runs for the fourth wicket in six overs before Tiwary's cameo ended at 24 from 30 balls with a snick to the keeper off Meaker, but it wasn't until a fortuitous run-out of Raina that England really regained their footing.
In the first match in Hyderabad, Raina had been reprieved at a crucial juncture of India's innings when most observers believed he should have been sent on his way. This time, his luck ran out as he dived for his crease to beat a shy from square leg from Bopara, only for his bat to bounce up after it had passed the line. To the naked eye, he appeared to be in by two feet, but the third umpire's call was the correct one, and he was on his way for 38 from 46 balls.
Ravindra Jadeja got off the mark with a first-ball drive for four off Finn, and had reached a run-a-ball 21 by the time Bell clung onto a full-blooded pull at midwicket to give Samit Patel his first wicket of the day. Patel's fellow spinner, Swann, however, had another below-par day at the office, and his figures received a bruising when Dhoni clubbed him for two sixes in three balls in an eighth over that went for 16.
However, Dhoni saved his most savage assault for the new boy, Meaker, whom he battered for a massive six over wide long-on in a penultimate over that went for 21. That tally included another aberration from Kieswetter, who let a slower-ball bouncer dribble away off his pads for five wides. Praveen Kumar then slogged Patel's next ball over midwicket for six before being caught on the boundary one delivery later, but Dhoni completed the assault with 2, 2, 6, 2, as India put themselves firmly in sight of their coveted 5-0 whitewash.
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