India are a few days away from the start of the five-match Test series against England that begins on August 1 at Edgbaston, Birmingham. In the preparation of the gruelling Test series, the visitors played a three-day warm-up match against Essex that ended in a draw. The one-off game against Essex left India with plenty to ponder upon as the spinners and the top-order batsmen failed to live up to the expectations. However, five of the Indian batsmen scored a fluent half-century in their first innings. India captain Virat Kohli was among the five to score a half-century, scoring 68 off 93 balls.
Following his half-century, Essex Cricket took to Twitter to congratulate the Indian captain. However, their tweet, "This guy's not bad at cricket... 50 up for @imVkohli off 67 balls!", was not received well by the Indian fans.
One Twitter user replied, "Whole world know he is a run machine in world cricket nd u guys know now," while another was certain that the Indian run-machine will score three centuries in the Test series.
With the warm-up game ending in a draw, Virat Kohli will have to take note of the top-order batting line-up as neither Shikhar Dhawan nor Cheteshwar Pujara could get any runs in their kitty. Dhawan ended the warm-up game with a pair and Pujara finished with just 24 runs.
Apart from Umesh Yadav (4/35) and Ishant Sharma (3/59), none of the other pacers could prove to be fatal. Spinners, on the other hand, did not seem to disturb the home side with their bowling.
The last time India toured England, they lost the five-match Test series 3-1 under the leadership of MS Dhoni.