Kevin Pietersen powers England Legends to win in their first match
England Legends kicked off their Unacademy Road Safety World Series campaign with a thumping win against Bangladesh Legends. England captain Kevin Pietersen top scored with the bat as pacer Chris Tremlett picked 2 wickets in 2 overs to derail the Bangladesh innings.
Earlier England Legends won the toss and elect to bowl at Shaeed Veer Narayan Singh International Stadium at Raipur which favored teams batting second in the tourney so far.
Bangladesh batsmen were constantly under the pump by England bowlers who kept chipping in with wickets at regular intervals. Monty Panesar was miserly in his spell of 4 overs conceding just 15 runs and picked the price wicket of Nafees Iqbal.
Wicket keeper Khaled Mashud and Mushfiqur Rahman rescued the team from 55-5 in 10 overs to 113-5 in 20 overs. Khaled Mashud was retired hurt for 31 with one over to go as captain Mohammad Rafique walked in to face 2 deliveries in the final over by Ryan Sidebottom.
England were dominating in the chase from the word go as wicket keeper batsman Phil Mustard (27 in 16 balls) put on a 46 run opening stand with captain Pietersen in just 3.4 overs before departing in pursuit of quick runs off the bowling of Alamgir Kabir.
Kevin Pietersen followed suite with a smashing innings as he devastated the bowlers all round the park and got England Legends closer to the target before he departed with the score at 86/2 in 8 overs. Pietersen scored 42 runs in just 17 balls at a strike rate of 247.06.
Rafique struck again to get rid of Chris Schofield but the experienced bat Darren Maddy’s run a ball 32 along with Scottish England cricketer Gavin Hamilton’s 6 ball 5 runs saw their team home in just 14 overs.
Match Summary
Bangladesh Legends: 113-5 in 20 overs
Mushfiqur Rahman 30*(26) | Khaled Mashud 31*(39) retd. hurt
Chris Tremlett 2-0-10-0
Monty Panesar 4-0-15-1
England Legends: 117-3 in 14 overs
Kevin Pietersen 42 (17) – 7 Fours & 1 Six | Darren Maddy 32*(32) – 1 Four & 1 Six
Mohammad Rafique 4-0-31-2
England Legends won by 7 wickets
Man of the Match
Kevin Pietersen
My dream team will feature Marcus Trescothick and Anil Kumble
