Related Link : India’s tour of England
The three-day match between England Lions and the Indians has ended in an expected draw. Andrew Strauss, the Captain finally got amongst the runs scoring a solid looking 80 and so did Mahendra Singh Dhoni, finally finding some success on this tour. Both sides got some decent batting practice on the final day while the bowlers struggled to take wickets. Just six wickets fell in the day’s play.
MS Dhoni who was the overnight batsman with 44 to his name stretched his score to 76. His innings also had two pull shots off the fast bowlers for sixes. Dhoni’s 76 came in 84 balls with 7 fours and those two sixes. Indians were bowled out for 383 inside 87 overs with Stuart Broad celebrating his Test Selection with a five-wicket haul.
The second innings of England Lions saw half centuries from Strauss and Owais Shah. Strauss batted nearly three hours to get a well paced 80 from 103 balls with 14 fours before he was bowled to a bottom edge in his sweep shot off Ramesh Powar. The Lions declared their innings at 227 for 2 having batted for 59 overs. Owais Shah remained unbeaten on 77 from 157 balls with 6 fours and a six with his partner being Jonathan Trott on 31.
The Indians had nearly one and half hours of batting practice in their second innings. The confident Dinesh Karthik helped himself to a strokeful 51 from just 45 balls with 8 fours before getting caught at covers off leggie Rasheed. Wasim Jaffer for once didn’t fail on this tour, playing out 48 deliveries watchfully to get a feel of the conditions. He remained unbeaten on 22 and Yuvraj also remained unbeaten; he got 6 from 28 balls as the match ended with Indians at 91 for 1 in 20 overs. Wasim Jaffer might just be persisted with in the Lord’s Test considering his last test scores and not the two practice matches where he has been woefully short of runs.
England Lions 1st Inngs 413 for 8 declared in 97 Overs (Tim Bresnan 126* Joe Denly 83 Stuart Broad 50 Ravi Bopara 29, Zaheer Khan 3/119 Sreesanth 2/76 Ramesh Powar 2/96 Sachin Tendulkar 1/24) & 2nd Inngs 227/2 declared in 59 Overs (Strauss 80 Owais Shah 77* Trott 31*) drew with Indians 1st Inngs 383 all out in 86.4 Overs (Sachin Tendulkar 171 Yuvraj Singh 59 MS Dhoni 76, Stuart Broad 5/76 Graham Onions 3/90 Chris Tremlett 1/40) & 2nd Inngs 91/1 in 20 Overs (Karthik 51 Jaffer 22*) at County Ground, Chelmsford