Kevin Pietersen soured Brian Lara's swansong match as England survived an edge-of-the-seat thriller to beat West Indies by 1 wicket in the final Super 8 match of the cricket World Cup. Pietersen first hit the stumps to effect Lara's run out following a horrendous mix-up with Marlon Samuels and then the maverick batsman went on to slam a 91-ball knock of 100 to set England on the course for a thrilling win.Put into bat, West Indies posted an imposing 300 in 49.5 overs before losing all their wickets. Chris Gayle (79) and Devon Smith (61) gave the hosts a flying start before Samuels (51), guilty of the ill-judged call that ended Lara's stay in the middle, chipped in to help the hosts clear the 300-run mark.In reply, England huffed and puffed their way and lost nine wickets before reaching the target with one ball to spare.After captain Michael Vaughan (79) and Pietersen made handsome contributions up the order, the pugnacious Paul Nixon (38 off 39 balls) proved his worth again and his lusty hits took England to the vicinity of an exciting win.Pietersen's heroic knock, which came off 91 ball and included 10 hits to the fence besides a six, earned him the Man of the Match award.England thus ended their World Cup campaign finishing fifth, while the West Indies came sixth.Though both the teams had the semifinal door slammed on their face, Saturday's inconsequential battle between saw a full house at the 25,000-strong Kensington Oval primarily because it was Lara's last match.
