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Kolkata, Oct 25: When India face the last of the five-match ODI series against England on Tuesday October 25, there will be only one goal - to make a clean sweep of the series. Only twice in the history has England lost 5-0 to any team, in 2006 against Sri Lanka and in 2008 against India. India is now eager to repeat history with yet another whitewash.
The Eden Garden Stadium which has a capacity to accomodate a crowd of over 64000, has failed to attract spectators so far, despite Deepavali holidays. Only 5000 tickets were sold out until Saturday. Organisers are expecting about 40,000 spectators, but so far, it doesn't seem possible. Absence of star cricketers is one of the prime reasons for the low turnout, feel cricket experts. However, former Bengal fast bowler S Bannerjee says that since India - England have played too many ODIs against each other of late, people have lost interest.
According to pitch experts, Eden Garden is expected to give a run fiesta to the crowd. Last time when India played against Sri Lanka here, a total of 632 runs were scored.
In the final ODI, the Indian team is as cheerful as ever, having shown the upper hand in all the previous games. Newcomers Parthiv Patel, Rahane, and Aaron are just waiting for another opportunity here to prove thier abilities.
Varun Aaron looks to be the real find of Indian cricket. His second spell in previous games proved deadly, giving a strong signal to the selectors that he can destroy the tailenders without much difficulty. His 3/24 spell was marvelous where he had the batsmen clean bowled.
Jadeja is slowly cementing is place in the team with his allround ability.
Raina, though he failed in two games, he came out with flying colours to bag man of the match award in the fourth ODI.
On the other hand, England captain Alatair Cook is at the receiving end for both his batting and poor captaincy. He did not impress the English fans in the last four games and could not even control his payers who resorted to sledging tactics to put Indian cricketers down. But credit goes to the Indian team for keeping a cool head and managing to convincingly defeat the Englishmen.
There would not be much change in both the teams. Manoj Tiwari, the local boy who is sitting in the dressing room for the last four matches is expected to get a place in the team, as Parthiv Patel is not in top form.
For England, Ian Bell is expected to make a comeback in place of Jonathan Bairstow. Graeme Swann might also come back in place of leg spinner Scott Borthwick, who failed in the last match.
Teams:
India: MS Dhoni(w/c), Virat Kohli, Rahul Sharma, Varun Aaron, Sreenath Aravind, Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Gautam Gambhir, Praveen Kumar, Ajinkya Rahane, Parthiv Patel, Suresh Raina, Manoj Tiwary, Vinay Kumar, Umesh Yadav
England: Alastair Cook(c), Jonathan Bairstow, Ian Bell, Ravi Bopara, Scott Borthwick, Tim Bresnan, Jos Buttler, Jade Dernbach, Steven Finn, Alex Hales, Craig Kieswetter(w), Stuart Meaker, Samit Patel, Kevin Pietersen, Graeme Swann, Jonathan Trott, Graham Onions.
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