England Collapse To Heavy Defeat

England crashed to a humiliating defeat as they were bowled out for just 98 in their final warm-up match ahead of the seven-match one-day series in India.

The batsmen were unable to cope against a side made up mainly of club players, losing by a massive 124 runs.

That was after the Mumbai President's XI, asked to bat first, made 222-7.

England lost their first five batsmen inside 12 overs, and seamer Kshemal Waingankar - with just one previous first-class cap - claimed five wickets.

Stuart Broad had a sore knee and was pulled out of the match as a precaution, and with Ryan Sidebottom (Achilles) still recovering it meant the tourists had only three fit specialist pacemen in the side.

But the problems were all with the bat - and there will be obvious concerns for England with the first one-day international of seven looming large in Rajkot on Friday.

It is, after all, only 10 days since they were skittled for 99 by the Stanford Superstars in Antigua.
But in Mumbai on Sunday - at the same Brabourne Stadium where they batted so poorly in Tuesday's defeat - Andrew Flintoff's century had taken them to 297-4 and an easy victory.

Warikshire batsman Ian Bell had looked in good touch when scoring 58 in that emphatic victory over the Mumbai Cricket Association.

But he lasted just two overs on Tuesday, hanging his bat outside off-stump almost in practice at a cut shot - and edging the ball behind.

Wicketkeeper Matt Prior suffered his second successive failure of the tour in the next over when he was given out lbw to seamer Rajesh Verma, from a delivery which kept low.

Waingankar then claimed the key wicket of Kevin Pietersen, who advanced down the wicket trying to whip the ball through mid-wicket but was hit on the pad - and the umpire upheld the lbw appeal.

Samit Patel, promoted to number five, was fortunate to survive another lbw appeal two balls later as he tried to rescue England in partnership with Paul Collingwood.

Their stand lasted only five overs, however, when Collingwood advanced to Verma and drove straight to mid-on to leave England in disarray.

Patel lasted a further three overs before also falling, this time edging Waingankar to second slip as the England collapse continued.

Flintoff lasted just one over before edging behind, and Ravi Bopara fell in similar circumstances - while Luke Wright became Waingankar's fifth victim when he played on, pushing forward defensively.

The dismissal of Steve Harmison left the scoreboard on 64-9 - whereupon Graeme Swann (24 not out) and James Anderson (20) showed there was little wrong with the pitch, putting on 34 for the last wicket in the most profitable stand of the innings.

England had done well enough with the ball, keeping the hosts to 222-7 off their 50 overs with Harmison taking 2-38. Patel also took two wickets but proved more expensive.

Having elected to rest batsman Owais Shah, England won the toss and Anderson - who impressed with 3-15 in the first match - took the first wicket.

They struggled to break a stubborn second-wicket stand worth 82 between Sushant Marathe (65) and Paul Valthaty (44), but three wickets then fell to the spinners and England seemed to be on top.

That impression continued despite the late intervention of Shoaib Shaikh, who hit two sixes off Patel and another off Collingwood, en route to 37 off 35 balls.