Virat Kohli hit a smashing 74 and was ably complemented by Suresh Raina as India overcame early jitters to post a commendable 178 for four against England in the second and final warm-up game of the ICC World T20 Championships, here today.
Raina smashed his way to a 31-ball-54 while Kohli was unbeaten on 74 off 48 balls as the duo added 81 runs in 8.5 overs after England left the 2007 champions tottering at 39 for three in the first six overs.
The turnaround happened when Kohli and Raina suddenly took off in the 13th over bowled by left-arm spinner Stephen Parry and the 15th bowled by medium pacer Ravi Bopara which yielded 17 and 19 runs respectively.
India scored 105 runs in the last 10 overs as Kohli and skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni (21 not out) added 51 runs in only 5.1 overs. The final over bowled by Tim Bresnan produced 17 runs with Kohli hitting him for three crisp boundaries. He hit eight in all.
Put into bat, Rohit Sharma (5) was out mistiming a pull shot as a delivery from Dernbach kept climbing on him and the skier was taken at deep fine leg boundary by Alex Hales.
Shikhar Dhawan (14) bisected the off-side field twice before a powerful drive hit uppishly was taken by James Tredwell diving to his right in the cover region. Yuvraj Singh (1) had a bad day in office as he got an under-edge trying to pull a back of the length delivery from Chris Jordan to be taken by wicketkeeper Jos Buttler.
In the six Powerplay overs, India had lost three wickets for 39 runs when Kohli and Raina joined forces.
