County XI vs India, Warm-Up game: Day 1, Review: KL Rahul and Ravindra Jadeja shine with the bat

India’s preparations for the upcoming five-match Test series against England commenced with a three-day warm-up game on Tuesday. Watching Rohit Sharma at the toss turned a lot of heads to start with but it was later cleared by the BCCI that both Virat Kohli and Ajinkya Rahane were nursing minor injuries and hence, didn’t take the field.

Toss went the visitors way though as they opted to bat first on a good pitch. But the start wasn’t expected for them with captain Rohit getting out early only after scoring nine runs. Mayank Agarwal played a couple of brilliant drives and looked extremely good before Lyndon James castled him on 28. Cheteshwar Pujara, under the scanner for his slow batting, uncharacterstically was stumped off a spin bowler Jack Carson.

India had lost their top three, that will most probably play the first Test next month, and at 67/3 inside the first session, looked in trouble.

KL Rahul takes over the control

With Rishabh Pant and Wriddhiman Saha not available, KL Rahul got a chance to play as the designated wicketkeeper in this game. And he grabbed the opporutnity with both the hands. Hanuma Vihari batted at four in Kohli’s absence but left the team reeling at 107/4. This is when Ravindra Jadeja came out to bat and this started a happy phase for India.

The duo of Jadeja and Rahul batted well then as they rebuilt the innings nicely. They took their time in the middle and made good use of the batting conditions on offer. Rahul, in particular, was aggressive taking toll of any poor delivery. They added an impressive 127 runs for the fifth wicket and in the process, Rahul also got to his scintillating century continuing his good limited-overs form into first-class cricket as well.

Jadeja, at the other end, bolstered his credentials as the batsman at number six. He was unflustered in his approach pacing his innings nicely. He scored 75 runs off 146 balls while Rahul got retired out on 101. Shardul Thakur showed off his batting prowess scoring 20 runs but India lost wickets quickly at the fag end of the day to end at 306/9 in 90 overs. Craig Miles was the pick of the bowlers for the County XI as he picked three wickets for 42 runs.

Brief Scores

India – 306/9 after 90 overs (KL Rahul 101, R Jadeja 75; C Miles 3/24)