Rohit Sharma stars as India defeat WA by 64 runs
A well made sixty seven from Rohit Sharma and a good performance from the spinners guided India to a 64-run victory in the fifty-over warm up match against Western Australia XI at Perth on Saturday
Brief Scores:India 249 all out in 49.1 overs (Rohit Sharma 67(82), Manish Pandey 58(59), Rahane 41(53), Drew Porter 5/37) defeated WA 185 all out in 49.2 overs (Jaron Morgan 50(66), Axar Patel 2/29, Dhawan 2/28) by 64 runs.
After registering a comfortable 74-run victory in the Twenty 20 match yesterday, India went into the 50-over match against Western Australia XI looking for much-needed practice ahead of the ODI series against the World Champions. Indian captain MS Dhoni decided to bat first after winning the toss to give the batsmen the first taste of the wicket. However, India got off to the worst possible start losing last match’s heroes Shikhar Dhawan and Virat Kohli cheaply.
Struggling at 19/2, Rohit Sharma and Ajinkya Rahane joined hands to lead the team out of the awful position. The duo formed an 88-run partnership for the third wicket to take India past 100 and to restore normality to the innings. India’s weakness of losing wickets in a pack resurfaced once again as they lost Rahane, Gurkeerat and Rohit in a matter of overs.
Dhoni’s struggle at the crease also ended shortly after that with the captain departing for 15 from 35 balls. Manish Pandey saved India the blushes with a well-made fifty to take India to some sort of respectability. Drew Porter ran through the lower order to finish the Indian innings at 249 in the last over of the innings. Porter also brought up his five-wicket haul by removing Ashwin for four to end the Indian innings.
Chasing a target of 250, WA got off to a steady start with William Bosisto and Jake Carder carefully negotiating the Indian bowlers. Umesh Yadav and Barinder Sran kept WA on a tight leash with some good bowling and the tight line finally found its way through in the tenth over with Bosisto falling to Yadav for 13. With the opening partnership broken, Dhoni introduced the spin trio of Ashwin, Jadeja and Axar, and the trio delivered with wickets to send WA into collapse.
After Jake Carder fell for 45, Jaron Morgan took up the mantle to keep WA from surrendering to the Indians. However, the rest of the WA batsmen had no answer to the Indian spin trio as they added six wickets between them. Gurkeerat took the final wicket of the match with his second ball to register India’s second victory in as many days against WA.
India, who lost Mohammed Shami to an injury, will take on World Champions Australia in the opening match of the ODI series on January 12.