India beat Pak by 5 wickets to take 1-0 lead

The Men in Blue today started the five-match one-day international series against Pakistan on a winning note, beating the visitors by five wickets to take a 1-0 lead at the Nehru Stadium here.

Guwahati, Nov 5 : The Men in Blue today started the five-match one-day international series against Pakistan on a winning note, beating the visitors by five wickets to take a 1-0 lead at the Nehru Stadium here.

India might have registered narrow victories against the archrivals in their previous two international encounters, but this time Pakistan was outplayed in all the departments of the game.

After winning the toss this morning, Pakistani captain Shoaib Malik decided to bat first on what looked as a flat batting wicket. But after the opening stand of 44 runs between Kamran Akmal and Salman Butt, the Pakistani batsmen never really looked to trouble the Indian bowlers, as they kept losing wickets at regular intervals.

Thanks to Mohammad Yousuf's 88-ball 83, they managed to post a decent target of 240.

Chasing it, India did not have a good start as they lost opener Sachin Tendulkar (4) in the third over at the total of 14 runs. However, the innings was consolidated by Saurav Ganguly (39) and Gautam Gambhir (44) with the second-wicket partnership of 82 runs. After their departure, skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni (63) and Yuvraj Singh (58) had a partnerships of 105 runs to make it sure that the hosts ease to a comfortable victory.

Dhoni was declared the Man of the Match.

Second match will a day-night game at Mohali on Thursday.

ANI