Munaf's pace hands England a loss
Munaf's pace hands England a loss
There were little signs of the batting disarray to come when Matthew Hoggard went beyond his nightwatchman duties.

Vadodara: Right-arm fast bowler Munaf Patel grabbed his second five-wicket haul of the match to bowl Board President's XI to a sensational eight-wicket victory over England at the IPCL Sports Complex in Vadodara on Saturday.

Munaf picked five for 32 for a match haul of 10-91 to spark a middle order collapse and bundle out the tourists for a meagre 158 in their second innings on the third and final day of the tour match.

The hosts then chased down the modest fourth innings target of 55 comfortably in 17 overs.

England, besides the humiliation on the field, were dealt with severe blows off it as well.

Even as they tried to make a contest of it, England had to come to terms with the development that stand-in captain Marcus Trescothick would fly back home immediately.

While skipper Michael Vaughan was already a doubtful starter for the first Test with a sore knee and missed the match.

Simon Jones, Paul Collingwood, Shaun Udal were other players to sit out with various fitness problems and Kevin Pietersen hurt his back during the first innings and did not bat in the second essay.

To deal with the crisis, England Board has decided to send 21-year-old batsman Alastair Cook and fast bowler James Anderson as cover and the two were to join the team in Nagpur ahead of the first Test from Wednesday.

There were little signs of the batting disarray to come when Matthew Hoggard went beyond his nightwatchman duties and blunted the home team attack in the morning.

Hoggard (42) combined with Trescothick (32) to add 64 runs for the second wicket from 131 balls before Shib Shankar Paul broke the association by sending the latter's off stump cart-wheeling half an hour before lunch.

Hoggard, who had stiched a winning partnership with last wicket Ashley Giles before leading England to a 2-1 Ashes triumph at Trent Bridge last summer, remained as calm as he was against the Australian attack.

His 158 minutes of dour defence, in which he faced 108 balls and hit four fours, came to an end when he went for a big shot against offie Ramesh Powar and was caught brilliantly by Suresh Raina at deep midwicket.

It was the sixth over after lunch, and the next over Andrew Flintoff fell to Patel caught behind.

The complexion of the match changed half an hour later when Ian Bell played inside the line and snicked it to the wicketkeeper off VRV Singh.

Geraint Jones played an atrocious paddle sweep moving across the line and fell leg before to Powar. Ian Blackwell and Liam Plunkett then added 26 runs before Patel returned to blow away the tail.

He first bowled the right-handed Plunkett with a full length delivery, and then came around the wicket to rattle the timber of Blackwell before trapping Monty Panesar plumb in front first ball.

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