On the final day of the four-day warm-up game between Cricket Australia XI (CA XI) and Indians at Sydney, Indians’ openers Murali Vijay scored a brilliant century and KL Rahul finally played a good knock.
CA XI started the day on 356/6 and managed to score 544 before getting all-out. The last night’s unbeaten batsmen Harry Nielsen completed his century while Aaron Hardie scored 86 runs before losing his wicket. Just after completing his century, the wicketkeeper-batsman Nielsen (100) was dismissed by the Indian skipper Virat Kohli.
There were also some important lower-order contributions during the CA XI innings that helped the team to put a good total on the board. As Indians scored 358 runs in their first innings, CA XI took a 186-run lead at the end of their first innings.
Kohli used a total of 10 bowlers in that innings, including himself who ended with the bowling figure of 7-0-27-1. Also, Mohammed Shami (3/97) picked up three wickets while Ravichandran Ashwin (2/122) claimed two wickets. Apart from them, Umesh Yadav (1/113), Ishant Sharma (1/73) and Jasprit Bumrah (1/0) also took one wicket each.
In their second innings, Indians had an impressive opening partnership of 109 runs while both the openers played 50+ knocks. KL Rahul finally got some good runs with his bat as he played a 62-run knock off 98 balls (8 fours and only six). Meanwhile, Murali Vijay played a powerful knock of 129 off 132 balls (16 fours and 5 sixes). Vijay’s best moment of the day was hitting 26 runs in an over. The day was called off just after Vijay’s dismissal while Hanuma Vihari was batting on 15 runs and Indians were on 211/2.
In the first innings of this warm-up game, five Indian batsmen hit half-centuries and they were Prithvi Shaw (66 runs), Cheteshwar Pujara (54 runs), Virat Kohli (64 runs), Ajinkya Rahane (56 runs) and Hanuma Vihari (53 runs) while Rohit Sharma played a 40-run knock.
Here are some Twitter reactions:
May not yet be the right reflection of India’s bowling might, but CA XI seem to be drilling it in: close to 550 and even the last pair is flogging the bowlers. The same old perennial problem? #INDvAUS
— Vikrant Gupta (@vikrantgupta73) December 1, 2018
Look what SA did to CA XI when they toured Australia in 2016… Look at what Indians managed to do….this half ass attempt with playing 4-day just to please the media that we did play practise game is just not worth…or maybe its our incompetent bowling.. #INDvAUS pic.twitter.com/58FC5kHhMe
— James (@Nitin31170387) December 1, 2018
Why @BhuviOfficial didn't bowl a single over? Is he not playing in 1st test match? Vikrant bhai #CAXIvIND #INDvAUS
— Ombeer Virat (@imombeer) December 1, 2018
That moment when the Skip gets a wicket #TeamIndia #CAXIvIND pic.twitter.com/VzuAajdM3E
— BCCI (@BCCI) December 1, 2018
https://twitter.com/BeingShubh55555/status/1068791641052372992
Surprising to see Jadeja bowl just 11 overs n kuldeep gets one over ! #CAXIvIND
— Rohit Subramanian (@rohit3195) December 1, 2018
https://twitter.com/cric_ap/status/1068661881647185920
https://twitter.com/the_ICTfan/status/1068803081582886913
