India found some positives in a lost warm-up match against Sri Lanka and found out their weak points during their comfortable win against England. India managed to 178/4 with help of swashbuckling innings by Virat Kohli and Suresh Raina. Later spinners contained England to 158/6 to win by 20 runs.
Chasing a good total of 179, England got to a decent start. They attacked Bhuvaneshwar and Shami. Especially Lumb went over Bhuvi but he came back well removing dangerous Hales. They were 43/1 in 5 overs before spinners were brought in as Ashwin, Jadeja and Raina kept the things tight. Lumb and Morgan were removed in this period.
Mishra could also have been good if Aaron didn’t drop those valuable catch of Ali twice. Ali made good 46 before was dismissed in search of quick runs with increasing required rate. Bopara was dismissed by Shami in penultimate over which closed their victory doors. Butler fell in final over in sort of reducing the loss difference to Jadeja.
England won the toss and put India into bat. Once again Indian openers failed to make a mark. Rohit tried to go for a pull after a slow start and failed in it as he was caught after scoring 5. Dhawan was too dismissed soon due to terrific fielding effort by Tredwell. By the end of power play Yuvraj Singh was also dismissed as India were reduced to 39/3. But a responsible batting display from Raina and Kohli helped India to move forward.
From the moment Raina came to bat tried to score quick runs and so he was successful. Kohli on other hand tried to set but he also started to attack along with Raina. They both put on 81 in 53 balls scored nearly at a rate of 9 an over during their partnership. Raina was dismissed by Bopara after a well-made 54 off 31 balls which included 6 fours and 2 huge sixers.
With 5 overs to go Dhoni, who didn’t bat in the 1st warm-up match batted at No.6. Kohli who was well set by that time took the more strike tried to clear the balls to the fence. Dhoni on the other hand supported Kohli scoring an unbeaten 21 off 14 with a four and a six. Kohli extracted 17 runs of last over which included 3 boundaries which helped India to end up at 178/4. Kohli was unbeaten on 74 off 48 balls which included 8 fours.
Brief Scores: India: 178/4 in 20 overs (V Kohli 78*, RS Bopara 1/25) defeated England: 158/6 in 20 overs (MM Ali 46, RA Jadeja 2/23) by 20 runs.
