England Lions hammered India A by 253 runs to give Rory Burns a win as captain on his debut for the team.
The tourists, chasing an unlikely 421 at New Road, were restricted to 167 for nine with last man Ankit Rajpoot absent hurt.
It was a performance to please Mark Ramprakash, who has taken over as Lions head coach this summer with Andy Flower taking on Andrew Strauss’s director of England cricket role on a temporary basis.
Against an India A team packed with talent and international experience and in conditions favourable to them, England selectors Ed Smith and James Taylor also raised the stakes by including six players with Test caps in the Lions XI – including 156 belonging to Alastair Cook.
Smith was present at all four days and was joined at various stages by Taylor, Flower and the ECB’s talent identification lead Mo Bobat as the Lions players jostled to make a positive impression.
Cook led the way with his 180 in the first innings – the third-highest individual score in an A Test for the Lions or the England A and B teams who preceded them, behind Taylor’s 242 in Dambulla and 211 by Jonathan Trott in Paarl.
Nick Gubbins helped Cook set the tone with 73 on the first day, Dawid Malan eased back into red-ball mode with a half-century in each innings, and Ollie
Pope marked his Lions debut with a sparky unbeaten 50 on day three.
Sam Curran became the youngest bowler to take five wickets in an innings for England in an A Test, and ended with match figures of seven for 60, while Chris Woakes took a major step forward in his bid to prove his fitness for the Specsavers Test Series against India and Jamie Porter and Matthew Fisher also impressed.
Somerset spinners Dom Bess and Jack Leach might have had some mixed feelings about the speed of India’s collapses, as they were restricted to a combined total of 24 overs – which may also have been a disappointment for Smith and the rest of the selectors.
England Lions beat India 'A' by 253 runs!
Scorecard:
➡️https://t.co/RXnOSgHlqT pic.twitter.com/Va48VksZ5L
But both ended the match on a high, with Bess claiming the high-calibre scalps of Ajinkya Rahane and Rishabh Pant, for India’s top scores of 48 and 61 respectively, and Leach having Jayant Yadav – a surprise Test centurion against England in India two winters ago – miscuing to mid-off. Porter also struck
twice.
“Played one, won one,” joked Burns, reflecting on his ideal start.
“It was a very pleasing performance. They were a good side, and we had a pretty comprehensive victory.
“It was set up day one by Alastair Cook, backed up by Gubbo and Dawid, and the rest of the four days all the bowlers stuck in. Sammy took the plaudits on the first innings but they all worked as a group.
“It was a bit bizarre captaining a team with all this experience. On the training day when it got announced to the group, Cooky was the first one to pipe up about me making my debut as captain.
“It’s been really interesting with Cooky and a few of the other guys, to see the other side of people having played against them quite a lot. This has been my first Lions experience and it’s been really enjoyable – 100 per cent I want more.”
