England captain Andrew Strauss found his form back with a stroke-filled 79 as the Indian bowlers struggled in the first session of their warm-up game against Somerset here on Friday.
At lunch, Somerset were 107 for the loss of Strauss’s wicket for 78 off 98 balls.
Strauss, making a guest appearance for Somerset, won his much-anticipated first-round battle against left-arm swing bowler Zaheer Khan, who bowled eight overs without success on the first morning.
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The left-hander rarely looked in trouble on a featherbed, smashing 16 fours during his 112 minutes’ stay at the crease.
Strauss had a couple of close calls though — when on 20 he was lucky to survive a LBW shout against Zaheer — and then wicketkeeper Wriddhiman Saha dropped him off leg-spinner Amit Mishra on 64.
The attacking batsman, with a history of being troubled by left-arm medium-pacers, and with just 27 runs from three Tests in the preceding series against Sri Lanka, was in his elements from the word go, hitting Zaheer for two fours.
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He followed them up with a couple of pushes down the ground for boundaries and nearly always got value for his shots against the tourists who appeared to have lost interest after a while.
Strauss shifted gears after the first hour and smashed an erratic S. Sreesanth for three fours after the medium-pacer switched his ends.
Two long-hops from the Kerala speedster were hit behind square for boundaries and one was guided off his pads to fine leg fence as Strauss reached his half-century with 11 fours from 63 balls.
Munaf Patel’s propensity to bowl at least one bouncer per over wasn’t such a good idea on this dead track and Strauss made full use of such deliveries.