Faridabad, March 31:

Suresh Raina hit an unbeaten 81 to halt an Indian collapse and secure a narrow victory against England in the second one-day match. Raina capitalised on a dropped catch to guide the home team to a four-wicket victory as they reached 230-6 with just one over to spare after being set 227 to win.

Raina’s heroics overshadowed the achievement of England’s Kevin Pietersen (71), who equalled Vivian Richards’ record of reaching 2,000 runs in 21 ODIs. India were struggling at 122-5 when James Anderson let slip a return catch off Raina.

The drop proved costly as Raina and wicketkeeper Mahendra Dhoni (38) put on 118 for the sixth wicket. Raina struck one six and eight fours as India took a 2-0 lead in the seven-match series.

England had been restricted to just 226 and India also found runs hard to come by on a slow track. But the hosts were strongly placed at 61-0 before slipping to 92-5. Ian Blackwell provided the breakthrough when he removed Virender Sehwag and then dismissed Yuvraj Singh. India earlier were well-served by Ramesh Powar, who finished with 3-34 to restrict England despite half-centuries from Pietersen and Andrew Strauss (61).

SCOREBOARD

ENGLAND

A Strauss b Powar 61

M Prior lbw b Harbhajan 33

O Shah c Dhoni b Powar 0

K Pietersen c Dravid b Yuvraj 71

A Flintoff st Dhoni b Powar 5

P Collingwood run out 5

G Jones c Gambhir b Sreesanth 22

I Blackwell b Sreesanth 9

L Plunkett b Pathan 4

K Ali not out 1

J Anderson b Sreesanth 2

Extras: 13 (b4, lb3, nb4, w2)

Total: 226 (49.5 overs)

FoW: 1-66, 2-71, 3-135, 4-143, 5-174, 6-193,

7-214, 8-221, 9-223

India bowling: Pathan 8-2-29-1,

Sreesanth 6.5-0-40-3, Harbhajan 10-1-43-1, Powar 10-0-34-3, Sehwag 4-0-21-0, Yuvraj 10-0-39-1, Gambhir 1-0-13-0

INDIA

V Sehwag b Blackwell 26

G Gambhir c & b Anderson 29

R Dravid run out 5

Y Singh b Blackwell 18

M Kaif lbw b Plunkett 0

S Raina not out 81

M Dhoni b Flintoff 38

I Pathan not out 12

Extras: 21 (lb4, nb1, w16)

Total: 230/6 (49 overs)

FoW: 1-61, 2-70, 3-72, 4-80, 5-92, 6-210

England bowling: Anderson 10-0-60-1, Ali 7-0-50-0, Flintoff 10-1-29-1, Blackwell 9-0-39-2, Plunkett 9-3-29-1, Collingwood 4-0-19-0