India prevail against a spirited Northamptonshire side by 10 runs in a thriller

Harshal Patel slammed a half-century to revive India's innings and also finished off the game with the ball.

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Harshal Patel
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Harshal Patel. Photo by David Rogers/Getty Images)

Team India faced Northamptonshire in the second and final T20 warm-up game on Sunday. They had won their previous game against Derbyshire comfortably and were expected to go past the County side this time as well. However, Northamptonshire pushed them to the brink and at one stage, were the favourites to win the game. However, India came back well courtesy of some lower-order contributions with the bat and the bowlers later to win the close game by 10 runs.

Earlier, India were invited to bat first and the visitors got off to a horrible start losing their three batters in the first three overs itself with only 8 runs on the board. Sanju Samson and Suryakumar Yadav bagged ducks while Rahul Tripathi also missed a scoop shot to get out on 7. This is when Dinesh Karthik joined hands with Ishan Kishan first and then Venkatesh Iyer to revive the team’s innings.

The skipper scored 34 runs off just 26 deliveries but the real impetus to the innings was provided by Harshal Patel who slammed an impressive half-century. He slammed 54 runs off just 36 balls with five fours and three sixes before getting out on the penultimate delivery of the innings. Thanks to his knock, India managed to post a competitive total of 149 runs for the loss of eight wickets in 20 overs.

Indian bowlers restrict Northamptonshire

In response, Emilio Gay got the team off to a flier even as his side lost early wickets. Saif Zaib also hung in the middle scoring vital runs for his side but the Northants kept losing wickets courtesy of some excellent bowling from the Indian pacers. At 77/6 in the 11th over, it seemed the visitors would run away with the game. But the lower-order of the Northants put up a brilliant fight making sure the team was in the hunt.

Zaib stuck to his task though and with the help of the tail, he took the team close to the target. The equation came down to 17 runs in the end off the last two overs. But Arshdeep Singh and Harshal Patel did an excellent job to keep the batters at bay with the latter scalping the crucial wicket of Zaib in the final over and seal the game for India.

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