London: Team India, under skipper Virat Kohli, pulled-off a clinical victory over Middlesex in the warm-up match at Lord’s on Friday ahead of the ODI series. Captain M.S. Dhoni opted to take a break away from the action. Having put up 230 on the board, the Indian bowlers as many as eight were used came up with an all-round show to bundle out Middlesex for 135 runs in 39.5 overs.
Leg-spinner Karan Sharma claimed three wickets for 14 runs in just 4.3 overs while the rest of the wickets were shared among the other six bowlers with Ravindra Jadeja being the odd man out ending up wicketless.
Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who did the bulk of bowling during the gruelling five-Test series, was used sparingly as he bowled just three overs. Put into bat, the Indians lost their openers early with Shikhar Dhawan (10) and Rohit Sharma (8) falling to the Middlesex new-ball bowlers Gurjit Sandhu (1-65) and Steven Finn (1-20) respectively.Ajinkya Rahane (14) also could not last long as the No.4 batsman fell to medium-pacer James Harris (1-29).
Leading the Indians, Kohli (71) then got going with Rayudu (72 retired out) to stitch a fourth-wicket 104-run partnership and put the innings back on track. It was good to see under-fire Kohli back amongst runs after a poor Test series.
The Middlesex spinners then turned on the heat. Left-arm orthodox bowler Ravi Patel (2-56) sent Kohli packing in the 30th over and Ravindra Jadeja (7) in the 34th. Off-spinner Olliver Rayner (4-32) soon took over from Patel to bag four wickets as the middle-order batsmen Ravichandran Ashwin (18), Sanju Samson (6), Stuart Binny (0) and Suresh Raina (5), who came in at No.11, fell to his guile.
Scorecard
Indians: Rohit Sharma c Sandhu b Finn 8, S. Dhawan c Malan b Sandhu 10, V. Kohli c Simpson b Patel 71, A. Rahane c Finn b Harris 14, A. Rayudu (retired out) 72, R. Jadeja c Gubbins b Patel 7, R. Ashwin lbw b Rayner 18, S. Samson c & b Rayner 6, S. Binny c & b Rayner 0, K. Sharma (not out) 8, S. Raina st Simpson b Rayner 5. Extras (lb2, w9) 11. Total (in 44.2 overs) 230.
FoW: 1-19, 2-29, 3-52, 4-156, 5-174, 6-211, 7-211, 8-211, 9-224.
Bowling: S. Finn 6-0-20-1, Sandhu 9-1-65-1, Harris 7-1-29-1, Podmore 4-0-26-0, Patel 9-0-56-2, Rayner 9.2-1-32-4.
Middlesex: D. Malan b Shami 5, N. Gubbins c Samson b Kumar 2, P. Stirling c Samson b Yadav 17, E. Morga c Samson b Mohit 16, R. Higgins c Dhawan b Kulkarni 20, J. Simpson lbw b Ashwin 19, A. Balbirnie b Karan 19, O. Rayner (run out) 5, J. Harris st Samson b Karan 20, H. Podmore (not out) 4, G. Sandhu lbw b Karan 0. Extras (lb6, w2) 8. Total (in 39.5 overs) 135.
FoW: 1-7, 2-11, 3-34, 4-64, 5-67, 6-101, 7-108, 8-114, 9-135.
Bowling: Kumar 3-0-7-1, Shami 4-1-13-1, Mohit 5-2-20-1, Yadav 7-0-32-1, Kulkarni 4-0-13-1, Ashwin 6-2-16-1, Jadeja 6-0-14-0, Karan 4.5-1-14-3.
