March 22, 2003	Saturday	Muharram 18, 1424

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JOHANNESBURG, March 21: India exposed Kenya’s pretensions to Test status on Thursday with a World Cup semifinal victory even more comprehensive than their 91-run victory margin would suggest (partly reported in Friday’s edition).

The 1983 champions now play defending champions and hot favourites Australia in the final at The Wanderers on Sunday.

Set an unlikely victory target of 271 at the Kingsmead ground in Durban, Kenya slumped to 104 for seven before captain Steve Tikolo struck a half-century against India’s part-time bowlers.

Tikolo’s 56 from 83 balls helped Kenya to 179, including 39 extras, but most of the cricket in the latter stages of the day-night match was not worthy of a World Cup semifinal.

With the result never in doubt after India compiled 270 for four, a large section of the 18,000 crowd had drifted to the exits before the match ended.

Captain Saurav Ganguly used spinners Harbhajan Singh and Yuvraj Singh in an effort to reach the 25 overs needed for a result if rain stopped the match early.

But once that mark was reached, he persisted with Yuvraj and also used Virender Sehwag and Sachin Tendulkar, who bowled indifferently at best.

“We wanted to give everybody a bowl,” Ganguly said. “They obviously went for a few runs, but once the fast bowlers came back we finished it off quickly.”

Rahul Dravid, suffering from a sore finger, was sloppy behind the stumps and India relaxed their grip on the match in a manner foreign to Australia.

India’s batting against some accurate if hardly threatening bowling at least matched the occasion.

Tendulkar (83) struck his sixth half-century of the tournament and Ganguly scored his third century with an unbeaten 111 in a total of 270.

Batting under the lights, Kenya could make no headway against the India pace attack of Javagal Srinath, Zaheer Khan and Ashish Nehra, with Zaheer proving the most successful with three for 14 from 9.2 overs.

Ravindu Shah (1) was plumb in front to Zaheer, Ongondo (0) looked totally out of his depth at number three before offering a catch to mid on off Nehra and Srinath continued his good tournament with a fine delivery Kennedy Obuya (15) could only edge to the wicket-keeper.

Nehra grabbed his second shortly afterwards when Sehwag did well to hold on to a steepling catch at fine leg to dismiss Thomas Odoyo for seven.

Kenya were similarly outclassed in their group match against twice champions West Indies, who failed to advance past the first round, although they will go home with victories over three Test nations in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and fellow-Africans Zimbabwe.

Opening batsman Ravindu Shah, who looked the classiest of the Kenyan batsmen throughout the tournament, said Kenya needed more cricket.

“We would like support from the ICC and to play more regularly at this level,” he said.

“We need the funding to play more cricket abroad.”

Scoreboard

INDIA:

V. Sehwag c Odumbe b Ongondo 33

S.R. Tendulkar c D. Obuya b Tikolo 83

S.C. Ganguly not out 111

Mohammad Kaif run out 15

Yuvraj Singh c D. Obuya b Odoyo 16

R.S. Dravid not out 1

EXTRAS (W-9, NB-2) 11

TOTAL (for four wkts, 50 overs) 270

FALL OF WKTS: 1-74, 2-177, 3-233, 4-267.

DID NOT BAT: D. Mongia, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, J. Srinath, A. Nehra.

BOWLING: Suji 10-1-62-0; Odoyo 10-1-45-1 (2nb, 1w); Ongondo 10-1-38-1; Karim 4-0-25-0 (1w); Tikolo 10-0-60-1 (2w); C.O. Obuya 6-0-40-0 (1w).

KENYA:

K.O. Obuya c Dravid b Srinath 15

R.D. Shah lbw b Zaheer 1

P.J. Ongondo c Zaheer b Nehra 0

T.M. Odoyo c Sehwag b Nehra 7

S.O. Tikolo b Tendulkar 56

M.O. Odumbe c Zaheer b Yuvraj 19

H.S. Modi c Dravid b Zaheer 9

D.O. Obuya run out 3

C.O. Obuya lbw b Tendulkar 29

M.A. Suji b Zaheer 1

A.Y. Karim not out 0

EXTRAS (B-16, LB-8, W-15) 39

TOTAL (all out, 46.2 overs) 179

FALL OF WKTS: 1-20, 2-21, 3-31, 4-36, 5-63, 6-92, 7-104, 8-161, 9-179.

BOWLING: Zaheer Khan 9.2-2-14-3 (3w); Srinath 7-1-11-1 (1w); Nehra 5-1-11-2 (2w);Harbhajan Singh 10-1-32-0; Yuvraj Singh 6-0-43-1; Sehwag 3-1-16-0 (1w); Tendulkar 6-0-28-2 (3w).

RESULT: India won by 91 runs.

UMPIRES: S.A. Bucknor (West Indies) and D.J. Harper (Australia).

TV UMPIRE: S.J.A. Taufel (Australia).

MATCH REFEREE: M.J. Procter (South Africa).

MAN-OF-THE-MATCH: Saurav Ganguly.—Reuters