ICC Champions Trophy Group A, Centurion:
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**By Pranav Soneji **
PAKISTAN INNINGS
4th over: 28-0 Here, belatedly, are the teams in full - India: Gambhir, Tendulkar, Dravid, Raina, Dhoni (C/W), Kohli, Y Pathan, Harbhajan, RP Singh, Nehra, I Sharma; Pakistan: Imran Nazir, Kamran Akmal (W), Shoaib Malik, Younus (C), Mohammad Yousuf, U Akmal, Shahid Afridi, Naved, Aamir, Umar Gul, Saeed Ajmal. Oooh Nazir, that shot had the Pakistan fans purring in adulation - a high-elbow, back-foot straight drive for four off RP Singh and Pakistan are making some excellent headway here. And Nazir creams another boundary now through the covers. Head-scratch time for India.3rd over: 18-0 Nehra bowls a dreadful delivery, short and wide. Nazir says thank you very much and smashes it through the covers for four. Nehra bucks his ideas up, and straightens one into Nazir’s pads, but umpire Steve Davis denies an lbw appeal - it was close, but perhaps just missing the top corner of his leg-stump.
2nd over: 13-0 By the way, I am Oliver Brett, despite what it says in the field above. Pranav is fighting his way through tube closures and so on. Oh there’s a humdinger of an off-drive from Imran Nazir off RP Singh’s first delivery - four spanking runs for the right-hander. Now here goes little Kamran Akmal, driving the other side of mid-off, for the second boundary of the over. This pitch is expected to slow up later on but the ball’s coming on nicely right now. A streaky square drive for Akmal gets Pakistan a couple more, but RP’s over-pitching at the moment.
1st over: 1-0 Exciting stuff from the second ball, Imran Nazir grinning at the non-striker’s end but he would have been run out if the throw from Suresh Raina. That was a very foolish single, but Pakistan survive. Nehra bowling well, with pace and accuracy plus just a little bit of seam movement.
1329: Kamran Akmal is first up to the plate - he will be batting with Imran Nazir. There’s no Amit Mishra for India, by the way, and Ashish Nehra bowls the first over from the River End.1328: So we’re just two minutes away from the first over and the national anthems are being sung. It’s a sunny afternoon in Centurion and the sell-out crowd are eagerly anticipating what could be a classic encounter between these two sides. They played out a high-scoring belter on this same ground in the 2003 World Cup, with India just about prevailing.1325: Welcome. Here’s the news from the middle - Pakistan have won the toss and decided to bat firstThis article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.