Dubai: India beat England convincingly by 7 wickets in the warm-up game of ICC World T20 at the ICC Academy Ground in Dubai on Monday. Chasing a mammoth 189, Ishan Kishan(70) and KL Rahul(51) starred for the Men in Blue stitching a blistering 82 run stand in 8.2 overs.
The later was more of the aggressor brining up his breezy half century in just 23 deliveries but fell to Mark Wood on the very next ball. However, India had a short collapse in the middle order with skipper Virat Kohli and Suryakumar Yadav going home cheaply thanks to some resilient bowling by the Englishmen especially David Willey(1/16) and Liam Livingstone(1/10) although rest of them got hammered to all-around park.
Kishan, the youngster who made his name in the recently concluded Indian Premier Legue(IPL), kept his similar rhythm going and after a steady start to his innings, he opened up his shoulders clobbering everyone to bring up his fifty, his knock came to an end after he decided to walk-off the ground giving space to other for a time at the middle in the warm-up game.
Hardik Pandya looked scratchy at the middle struggling with his timing. It all came down to Rishabh Pant who finished off the game hammering a 14 ball 29 sealing the deal.
Earlier, England too batted well to get 188/5 in 20 overs. Their top three although didn’t stayed long at the crease but the pace of their cameos was quite crucial for the English line up to maintain a healthy run-rate. Mohammed Shami though picked up three wickets, but went for a few runs.
Jasprit Bumrah(1/26) was quite economical and so too was veteran Ravichandran Ashwin giving away just 23 runs in his spell. For England, Jonny Bairstow(49) was the top scorer for them while Liam Livingstone(30) and Moeen Ali(43) added handy runs to give the innings a good finishing touch.
Brief Scores: India 192/3 in 19 overs(Ishan Kishan 70, KL Rahul 51; Liam Livingstone 1/10) beat England 188/5 in 20 overs(Jonny Bairstow 49, Moeen Ali 43; Mohammed Shami 3/40) by 7 wickets
