Batting feast as Asia XI pile 337

---

Sourav Ganguly is taking a shot during the second ODI of the Afro-Asia Cup series at Chennai Saturday.

The bat dominated the ball for the second game running as Asia XI, boosted by half centuries from three of their top-order batsmen, piled up 337 for 7 at the end of their 50 overs.
Virender Sehwag laid the foundation with a typically belligerent half-century, allowing Sourav Ganguly and Mohammad Yousuf to propel the side to their second successive 300-plus score on a flat pitch that had runs written all over it.
The conditions were such that the batsmen needed very little time to get their eye in and unleash strokes to all corners of the ground. While Yousuf, Mahela Jayawardene and Sehwag took the attack to the bowlers, Ganguly played the steadying hand. The plan was probably for him to stay till the end but he fell 12 short of the ton that has eluded him for a while and it was Yuvraj Singh who added the finishing touches with a 13-ball blitz that yielded 30 runs.
As at Bangalore, the African bowlers attempted to unsettle the batsmen with raw pace but, in the process, sprayed the ball wide of off stump repeatedly in the early part of the innings, handing the Asians the initiative on a featherbed of a pitch.
Sehwag and Sanath Jayasuriya got the side off to a rollicking start, relishing anything off target. The pitch was a front-foot thumper's dream and Sehwag merely had to hit through the line and bisect the gaps on the off side. That forced Justin Kemp, the African captain, to make some early bowling changes and field adjustments, giving his bowlers protection at the boundary on both sides of the wicket.
The African bowlers repeatedly gave Sehwag ample width to free his arms, as if expecting him to repeat the mistake he made at Bangalore when he had chopped a wide delivery onto his stumps. Sehwag did not fall for that but was finally deceived by a slower one from Chigumbura and forced into lobbing a catch to deep mid-on.
Sehwag's dismissal immediately slowed the scoring rate as both Sourav Ganguly and Mahendra Singh Dhoni, earning a promotion in the batting order, seemed prepared to graft it out. Ganguly began with a silken drive past the covers and grew in confidence, targeting Botha on quite a few occasions, using his feet and getting to the pitch of the ball. Dhoni added the spark in the middle overs, treating himself to two sixes, the first over long-on and the second over the bowler's head. However, he succumbed to another of Kemp's intelligent bowling changes, playing all over an Albie Morkel yorker.
The excitement for the fielding side was short-lived as Mahela Jayawardene wasted no time in getting on with the job, lofting a slower ball over mid-on and following it up with a swivel pull for six. Jayawardene, who is in good form, drove and cut with ease and picked up a series of boundaries, bringing up the 50-run partnership with Ganguly in just 36 balls. An unfortunate mix-up with Ganguly cut short his knock and Jayawardene fell five short of a deserved half century.
The introduction of the part-timer, Vusi Sibanda, only exposed Africa's weakness in the spin department and Yousuf, after a quiet start, milked the attack. Chigumbura picked up two wickets but at a high cost as he was unable to restrict the scoring. Yousuf fell shortly after reaching his half century but he needn't have worried too much as Yuvraj merely stood at the crease and delivered, swinging across the line and sending the ball screeching towards the deep midwicket fence.