Gill dazzles, Rohit fizzles

Shubman shines with 62-ball 50 on his return from thumb injury, while skipper Sharma fails to score big in Indians’s curtailed warm-up game against PM’s XI ahead of the pink ball Test

Nearly a tenth of the 5,000-plus people who had filtered into the Manuka Oval on Sunday afternoon trooped out of the ground moments after Rohit Sharma was dismissed for three, reaching out to a widish ball from Charlie Anderson and putting first slip in business.

Rohit was the biggest attraction of the Indians’s rescheduled pink-ball one-day warm-up game against a Prime Minister’s XI, especially once it became clear that Virat Kohli would take no part in the match. The Indian captain, a late arrival in Australia towards the end of the Perth Test, lasted only 11 deliveries after coming in at No. 4 — how much should be read into KL Rahul continuing to open with Yashasvi Jaiswal is left to individual points of view at this juncture — and trudged off visibly disappointed, failing to make the most of his only competitive hit before the day-night Test in Adelaide from Friday.

PM’s XI’s pacer Charlie Anderson celebrates the wicket of Rohit Sharma

This was a friendly outing for the Indians against a combative Prime Minister’s XI for whom Sam Konstas produced a breezy century. The 20-year-old right-hander began in orthodox fashion, especially against Mohammed Siraj who bowled a tidy extended seven-over spell either side of a 44-minute stoppage for rain that forced this game to be reduced to 46 overs a side, before opening up.

Also Read: Fit-again Gill gets quality match time, Rohit keeps people guessing

Four quick wickets for Rana

There wasn’t much joy to be had with the pink ball in natural light and India’s quicks, among them Akash Deep and Harshit Rana, went for a few. Rana salvaged an ordinary outing with four quick wickets to precipitate a collapse when Konstas, resorting to mows and hoicks and one reverse ramp as his innings progressed, and Hanno Jacobs put on 69 to arrest a slide of five for seven as the PM’s XI mustered 240 all out.

Openers provide good start

As the artificial lights took effect and the pink ball started to do a little more with Scott Boland, expected to return to Test cricket later this week, in the forefront, Jaiswal and Rahul kicked off India’s reply. Rahul in particular showed tremendous judgement outside off and played a couple of peachy drives in front of the stumps, while Jaiswal was more iffy, his adventurousness eliciting more than an occasional edge. Rahul was retired not long after Jaiswal threw his hand away for 45 so that Shubman Gill and Rohit could get their first hits of the tour.

Also Read: Rohit Sharma sent packing early in warm-up fixture against Prime Minister's XI

Gill, fully recovered from the hairline fracture in his left thumb, spent reasonable time in the middle and looked in decent touch, a positive development considering his recent run of good scores and his pre-eminence at No. 3 in the batting order. One excellent trademark punch in front of point off Mahli Beardman had class written all over it as the ball raced across a reasonably heavy outfield. Gill looked fairly assured in defence before he retired on 50, as did Nitish Kumar Reddy, who earned a promotion to No. 5 with Kohli opting to bat in the nets against Jasprit Bumrah and others and helped himself to a bouquet of boundaries. For the record, India batted their full quota of 46 overs, finishing on 257 for five.

Brief scores
Prime Minister’s XI 240 all out in 43.2 overs (S Konstas 107, H Jacobs 61, J Clayton 40; H Rana 4-44, A Deep 2-58) lost to Indians 257-5 in 46 overs (S Gill 50, Y Jaiswal 45, N Reddy 42, W Sundar 42*; C Anderson 2-30) by 6 wickets

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