Spinners tighten grip on Pakistan

Pakistan won the toss and elected to bat first in the first One-Day International against India in Guwahati on Monday.

After ensuring a solid start, Pakistan lost the wicket of Kamran Akmal in the 11th over when Irfan Pathan broke through for India by trapping him in front of the stumps.In fact, Zaheer Khan struggled a little bit with his line and length in the initial stages of the match as the Pakistan batsmen, particularly Salman Butt, helped himself to a couple of boundaries while from the other end R P Singh bowled a good line and length.

The introduction of one change bowler Irfan Pathan further tightened the visitor’s run rate as the new batsman Younis Khan found runs hard to come by.From the other end Butt was gaining in confidence and completed his quick-fire fifty. However, soon after reaching his half-century, he was run out after a mix-up with Younis, as Pakistan fell to 69 for two. Pakistan opened with their wicketkeeper-batsman Kamran Akmal and regular opener Salman Butt while India opened their bowling with the left arm duo of Zaheer Khan and Rudra Pratap Singh.India rested Praveen Kumar, Rohit Sharma and S.Sreesanth from the playing eleven while Pakistan left out Sohail Tanvir, Imran Nazir and Fawad Alam from the eleven.

The teams:
India: Mahendra Singh Dhoni (capt), Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Yuvraj Singh, Gautam Gambhir, Irfan Pathan, Zaheer Khan, Harbhajan Singh, Murali Kartik, Robin Uthappa, and Rudra Pratap Singh.

Pakistan: Shoaib Malik (capt), Shahid Afridi, Salman Butt, Yasir Hameed, Younis Khan, Mohammad Yousuf, Misbah-ul-Haq, Kamran Akmal, Shoaib Akhtar, Umar Gul, Rao Iftikar and Abdul Rehman.
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