Friday 16 September 2011

England look to end summer unbeaten against deflated India.

Alastair Cook leads his side out at Cardiff today looking to ensure England end the summer unbeaten against an Indian side that has failed to impress in any format of the game. MS Dhoni's men will, surely, look to end their tour with a positive result after being brushed aside in the ODIs so far, losing the series 2-0 already after Sunday's tie, and being completely dominated by a rampant England side 4-0 in the tests.

With experienced men, such as, Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag, Zaheer Khan, Yuvraj Singh and Harbajhan Singh all at home due to injuries this Indian side has not been at full strength and their bowling has looked particularly light. Parthiv Patel and Rahane have ably stepped in at the top of the order for the Indians and Rahul Dravid has continued his good summer form but no Indian bowler has troubled England like Anderson, Finn, Swann, Broad and Bresnan have Dhoni's side.

Broad will miss the game at the Swalec stadium due to the shoulder injury he suffered in the last game and is likely to be replaced by Jade Dernbach. Yorkshire's Jonny Bairstow and Somerset's Jos Buttler come into the squad as cover for Ben Stokes. There are no other injury worries so England should remain unchanged with Ravi Bopara looking to build on his excellent 96 last time out as he looks to regain a place in the England set-up.

In what will prove to be Rahul Dravid's last ODI appearance for his country, after 344 matches, 10,820 runs, including 12 hundreds and 82 fifties at an average of 39.06, the Indian side owe him a performance. Throughout the summer Dravid has been the only batsman to stand up and be counted and much of the same will be expected today when he wears the blue colours of India for the last time.

Start time: 1400
Coverage: Sky Sports, BBC Radio 4 and Channel 5 (Highlights)

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