Southampton, June 12: India cricketers, who are serving a 10-day quarantine period here ahead of the World Test Championship (WTC) final, began their England sojourn with a two-day intra-squad practice match here at Hampshire Bowl.
The flamboyant Rishabh Pant took his senior bowling colleagues to the cleaners with an unbeaten century while opener Shubman Gill also warmed up with a polished 85 during the Indian team’s intra-squad match simulation over the last two days.
The two teams are being led by Virat Kohli and KL Rahul with all the first team batsmen packed in one side and the regular bowlers on the other, with reserves like Rahul, Wriddhiman Saha and Hanuma Vihari. Pant, who has been in the form of his life, hammered every bowler including the spinners in his unbeaten 121 off 94 balls.
Opening the batting with Rohit Sharma, Gill scored 85 off 135 balls.
Pant’s sparkling knock and Gill getting into the rhythm augur well for the Indians who are expected to play another short intra-squad simulation game in the coming days.
It is learnt that the first team batsmen had multiple opportunities to bat even after getting out as it was match simulation.
Kohli’s team was only troubled by veteran pacer Ishant Sharma who returned the best figures of 3 for 36.
On the second day, the BCCI uploaded video footage of skipper Kohli rolling his arm over after a long time, bowling his gentle seam up stuff to Rahul. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) had released pictures as well as a video on Saturday with the highlights of first day’s play on Friday.
Pace bowlers Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami, Ishant Sharma and Mohammed Siraj are seen bowling. Newcomer Arzan Nagwaswalla is also seen in action. Spinner R Ashwin is also seen rolling his arm over.
The Indian team is on a three-and-a-half month tour of England where it plays the WTC final against New Zealand from June 18 and then a five-Test series in August-September.
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, India are not allowed to play any local club or county team unlike in the past.
Even New Zealand played an intra-squad warm-up game last month on arrival in Southampton.
However, unlike the Indian cricket board, New Zealand Cricket passed on the details of the match especially the outstanding performances from the day’s play.
The Indians had reached Southampton on June 3. Their workload increased gradually as directed by the International Cricket Council (ICC) which is hosting the WTC final. (Agencies)
