Dhoni bludgeons England to defeat

England had no response to Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s powerful hitting on the way to a chastening 126-run defeat against India in yesterday’s first one-day international at the Rajiv Gandhi Stadium.

Dhoni (87 not out) and Suresh Raina (55) transformed India’s innings after they had initially struggled after choosing to bat first, the hosts eventually piling up a daunting 300 for seven.

England, who have only twice won chasing 300 or more, were given a good start by their captain Alastair Cook (60), but his team-mates came up worryingly short. Five wickets fell for only 23 runs, starting with Cook’s, to leave England 134 for seven in the 29th over – a collapse from which there could be no feasible recovery.

England were strangled by pace off the ball on a slow surface, with six wickets shared between left-arm orthodox Ravindra Jadeja (three for 34) and off-spinner R Ashwin (three for 35) in the first game of a hectic five-match series.

India’s top order had also found it hard to get going on a pitch which appeared to favour containing bowlers over attacking batsmen. But Dhoni and Raina became sufficiently attuned to conditions to cash in with 59 runs for the loss of one wicket in a late batting powerplay, gathering enough momentum for India to then blast another 92 off the last ten overs.

Without a limited-overs series win here since 1984/85, England are out to follow up their 3-0 victory over the same opponents on home turf in last month’s NatWest Series. But they did not help themselves by bowling 12 wides and Dhoni, Raina and Jadeja hit 16 fours and five sixes between them from 147 balls to turn what seemed set to be merely a near-par total into something much more challenging.

Jonathan Trott put down a regulation early chance at second slip off Steven Finn to spare opener Ajinkya Rahane on nought. But Finn’s endeavour, and some good fortune, brought England an early wicket when Rahane drove firmly back to the bowler, who stooped to deflect the ball on to the stumps with Parthiv Patel out of his ground backing up.

Gautam Gambhir hinted at fluency, but the opposite was true of Rahane, who spent 41 balls over his 15. Graeme Swann pulled off his old party trick of a wicket in his first over to put Rahane out of his misery. He drew the diminutive opener out of his ground and beat him on the outside with an off-break which turned marginally for Craig Kieswetter to complete a straightforward stumping.

Virat Kohli, a centurion in his previous ODI against England in Cardiff and a star of the recently-concluded Champions League, buckled down with Gambhir.

But boundaries were very hard to come by – Kohli could not muster a single one off 63 balls – and Gambhir eventually went in odd circumstances, bamboozled lbw by a slower-ball full-toss from Jade Dernbach.

Kohli waited for what he thought was the right ball for the big hit, but just failed to clear Kevin Pietersen, who took a fine catch on the long-off boundary off Samit Patel. Raina had by then survived the tightest of third-umpire calls on 16, when he too could easily have been run out at the non-striker’s end but perhaps just grounded his bat before Patel deflected Kohli’s drive.

That narrow margin made a huge difference to a home innings which careered out of England’s control, even after Raina had miscued another attempted big hit at Finn to Jonny Bairstow at point.

England’s chase began poorly as Craig Kieswetter was undone by a touch of new-ball away swing from Praveen Kumar to be caught behind in only the third over.

Pietersen was soon just short of his ground when trying to scamper a single to mid-on, where R Ashwin reacted swiftly with a direct hit. A stand of 71 between Cook and Trott gave England hope for the next 13 overs.

The England captain’s 50 came up at exactly a run a ball and featured some encouraging scoring options down the ground as well as his favoured outlets squarer of the wicket.

But from the moment he picked out deep midwicket off Jadeja, his team went into sharp and terminal decline.

Trott missed a sweep at Jadeja and was bowled, Ravi Bopara and Bairstow both went caught-and-bowled to spin and Tim Bresnan was stumped advancing to a leg-side wide from Ashwin.

The game was up and it did not take long to confirm the details of a wide-margin setback for England, with almost 14 overs unused.