Alastair Cook Guides England Lions to a Respectable Total

The spiced Alastair Cook warmed himself with an emblazing ton gearing himself up for the five-matches Test series, starting August 1.

In the first day of the four-day unofficial Test, India strongly got rebuked from England courtesy Alastair Cook.

Dawid Malan and Nick Gubbins well supported him. Meanwhile, seven players are participating in the game who have already featured in the international arena.

From India, Test vice-captain Ajinkya Rahane is playing to prepare himself. Apart from him, the red-ball opening batsman of India, Murali Vijay is also participating in the game. The others are in the form of Rishabh Pant, Karun Nair, Prithvi Shaw, Ankit Rajpoot and Mohammad Siraj.

Summary of the match

After batting first, England displayed a reproaching approach while putting a total of 423 in the first inning.

Although, Navdeep Saini gave an early breakthrough in the form of Rory Burns who scored just five. However, Cook and Gibbins bashed Indian bowlers all around the park, as Cook scored 180 while Gibbins got 73.

Dawid Malan with 74 and Chris Woakes with 15 was amongst the top run-getters. Mohammed Siraj helped India A to came back on track, as he topped the wickets column with four wickets. Shahbaz Nadeem also got three wickets in the match.

Response from India

While responding to a pile of 423 runs, India lost their opening batsman, Murali Vijay on the team score of 37 runs. Vijay, on the other hand, scored eight when James Porter struck him plumb before the wickets.

Prithvi Shaw was the lone warrior from the one end, as India lost three wickets in a quick interval. Agarwal got out for a nought while, as Nair scored four before handing over a simple catch to Sam Curran. Shaw soon could not cope up the pressure and he gifted his wicket to Sam Curran.

Ajinkya Rahane and Rishabh Pant steadied the ship of India, as Rahane is batting on 26 while, as Pant is playing magnificently on 37. India is still trailing by 279 runs.