India spank Aussies by six wickets, take 2-1 lead in series

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We lost in the first 15 minutes: DhoniAustralia clinch series against IndiaAustralia fined for slow over-rate in Mohali ODIAfter the high, the blows

New Delhi: Yuvraj Singh and captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni produced scintillating knocks on a tricky track as India recovered from early jolts to spank Australia by six wickets in the third cricket one-dayer and take a 2-1 lead in the seven-match series here on Saturday.

After Australia posted a competitive 229 for five largely built around Michael Hussey's unbeaten 81, Yuvraj (78) and Dhoni (71 not out) played their innings brilliantly to guide the team home with 10 balls to spare in a relatively low-scoring contest.

Both the batsmen started cautiously on a difficult Feroze Shah Kotla strip before unleashing a barrage of strokes in a record fourth wicket partnership, which took the game away from the hapless visitors.

The capacity crowd at the Kotla burst into celebrations as Suresh Raina hit Mitchell Johnson to the boundary to bring about the winning runs, leaving the world champions in a daze.

Yuvraj and Dhoni stitched a record 148-run partnership against Australia in India, eclipsing the previous best of 119 between Dhoni and Gautam Gambhir in the last game in Nagpur.

The dashing left hander perished after putting India within sniffing distance of victory, but Dhoni ensured that there were no further hiccups.

Both the teams will now travel to Mohali for the fourth game to be played on Monday.

Indian openers milked 12 runs off the first over with Sachin Tendulkar hitting Mitchell Johnson for two boundaries -- one past cover and the other clipped to the square leg boundary.

Playing in front of his home crowd, Virender Sehwag (11), however, looked strangely subdued. Even when he middled the ball, he did not find gaps and to make it worse, the hard-hitting opener was hit on his foot by a Peter Siddle yorker in the eighth over which had him in pains, needing the physio's attention.

When play resumed, Sehwag slashed Johnson for his only four but three balls later, he had his middle stump uprooted by a Johnson express that simply crashed through his defence.

Hit on his neck while fielding that prompted him to leave field, Gambhir walked out to hearty applause but he too found boundaries were not easy to come by as the Australians maintained stiffling line and length and did not hesitate to throw themselves around to cut short boundaries.