India’s victory in the finals of NatWest Series 2002 is considered as one of the greatest in the history of Indian cricket. Under the leadership of Sourav Ganguly, young players like Virender Sehwag, Mohammad Kaif and Yuvraj Singh won the game for India.
On a good batting wicket at the home of cricket, English captain Nasser Hussain won the toss and elected to bat first. Nick Knight could not get going in his stay in the middle. In came the English captain and framed a big partnership with Marcus Trescothick, who was going very well at the other end.
Both the batters got to their hundred. As the Southpaw scored 109(100) and helped the home side to have the momentum, Nasser Hussain anchored the chase with his 115(128). Andrew Flintoff did a good job as the finisher as he scored 40(32). Indian bowlers had no answer to the batters of England. The home side ended up scoring 325/5 in their 50 overs, which was a daunting total, particularly in the final of a tournament.
326 was chased only once in ODIs till that point. Even that came from the mighty batting lineup of Australia, just about 65 days before the NatWest final. The Indian team was young and had a huge challenge ahead of them. It was almost safe to say that England were the favorites.
The Indian openers went all guns blazing at the start. The young Sehwag scored 45(49) and the captain Ganguly was off to 60(43) in no time. The dismissal of Ganguly started a huge collapse. From 106/1 after 14.3 overs, India lost the next 5 wickets for just 40 runs. India lost the big names, of the experienced ones, like Sourav Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar, and Rahul Dravid in the process. India needed 180 runs in 26 overs with only 5 wickets in hand.
Yuvraj Singh and Mohammad Kaif were the last recognized batting pair, both were young. But the young duo rose to the occasion and proved their caliber. Yuvraj Singh scored 69(63) and Mohammad Kaif scored a fantastic unbeaten 87(75) and saw his team home along with Zaheer Khan. It remained the second highest run chase in ODIs for some time.
OTD| Bangladesh registered their lowest Test innings score of 43 against West Indies in 2018
Predicting India’s Playing XI for their first T20I against Zimbabwe
OTD – Rohit Sharma became the first batter to score five hundreds in a World Cup in 2019
3 reasons why Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli retiring from T20Is was the right call 
