It was a game that required India to show their fans that they can give a better account of themselves after their slow-scoring shame against England in the World Cup opener. Srinivas Venkataraghvan wasn’t needed to take a call at the spin of the coin as his East African counterpart Harilal Shah won the toss and opted to take first strike at Headingley.
And, what followed was an absolute crawl from the East African batsmen. In fact, the soporific proceedings were largely due to left-arm spinner Bishen Singh Bedi keeping a tight leash on the opposition batsmen.
Bedi had come into the game replacing Karsan Ghavri and the move paid off as he completely starved the opposition for runs, finishing with highly frugal returns of 12-8-6-1 coming in as first change. He castled Yunus Baidat for his only scalp after their openers had meandered to 36 in 22 overs before Bedi took centrestage.
The miserly bowling spell from Bedi put India in the box seat as East Africa were bowled out for 120 in 55.3 overs.
Bedi’s bowling effort was handsomely complemented by half-centuries from openers - Sunil Gavaskar and Farokh Engineer as India cantered home with more half of their overs remaining.
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