Calm Cook leads England’s reply

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Opening batsman Alastair Cook showed that the extra burden of leading the side did not fluster him much as England’s new full time Test captain batted for 360 minutes for his unbeaten knock of 112 to guide his team 286/4 on Day Two of the first warm-up match here at the Brabourne Stadium.

The southpaw shared an unbeaten fifth wicket stand of 153 runs with Samit Patel (82 off 145 balls, 4x12) to help the team recover from 133/4 in response to India A’s first innings total of 369 runs.

The tourists now trail by 83 runs. On a pitch that had no demons, Yuvraj Singh was India’s best bowler with wickets of Kevin Pietersen and Ian Bell, while Ashok Dinda and Suresh Raina shared a wicket each.

Cook, who took over England captaincy in August after Andrew Strauss’ retirement, showed great concentration to bat for more than five hours for his century, which he brought up from 207 balls in the 76th over. On the other hand, Patel went for his shots and looked comfortable against the Indian spinners.

England’s flamboyant batsman Pietersen had no trouble in ‘reintegrating’ back into the England fold on Day One but not all of his old issues were settled with his return to national side after a gap of three months. Replacing Trott (56 in 118 balls), who shared a solid 95-run stand with Cook, the aggressive middle-order batsman was lapped up for 23 runs by Yuvraj, his on-field adversary and a friend off it.

Famously labeled ‘pie-chucker’ by Pietersen, Yuvraj proved how good his ‘left arm filth’ bowling is by dismissing the dashing batsman for the sixth time in his career. Pietersen started in his customary attacking manner with boundaries off Parwinder Awana, and Vinay Kumar and followed it up by a six straight over the sight screen and a four off Raina.

scorecard
India A (1st innings): A. Mukund c Bell b Swann 73, M. Vijay (run out) 7, A. Rahane c Pietersen b Bresnan 4, Yuvraj Singh st Prior b Swann 59, S. Raina c Bell b Patel 20, M. Tiwary b Bresnan 93, W. Saha lbw b Anderson 20, I. Pathan lbw b Swann 46, R. Vinay Kumar lbw b Anderson 25, A. Dinda b Bresnan 0, P. Awana (not out) 11. Extras (b1, lb9, w1) 11. Total (in 90.1 overs) 369.

FoW: 1-25, 2-57, 3-113, 4-140, 5-168, 6-190, 7-300, 8-347, 9-347.

Bowling: Anderson 17.1-4-65-2, Finn 4-1-22-0, Bresnan 20-6-59-3, Trott 5-0-21-0, Swann 23-6-90-3, Patel 20-4-95-1, Pietersen 1-0-7-0.

England XI (1st innings): A. Cook* (batting) 112, N. Compton c Saha b Dinda 0, J. Trott b Raina 56, K. Pietersen c&b Yuvraj Singh 23, I. Bell c Raina b Yuvraj Singh 5, S. Patel (batting) 82. Extras (b1, lb4, w1, nb2) 8. Total (for four wickets in 87 overs) 286.

FoW: 1-2, 2-97, 3-125, 4-133.

Bowling: Pathan 13-3-45-0, Dinda 16-2-46-1, Yuvraj Singh 16-1-52-2, Vinay Kumar 12-1-35-0, Awana 8-1-32-0, Tiwary 4-0-23-0, Raina 16-2-43-1, Vijay 2-0-5-0.