England seals first win on India tour; beats India A by 3 wickets

Mumbai: A 95-run opening partnership by Jason Roy and Alex Hales helped England register their first win on India tour as they defeated the India A by 3 wickets with 7 balls remaining in the first practice match, ahead of the three-match ODI series, being played at Brabourne Stadium here on Tuesday.

Sam Billings played the pivotal role in England's chase of 305-run target, as he played a commendable 93-run innings off 85 balls hitting 8 boundaries.

Jason Roy, who was the second highest scorer for England, played nicely during his 62-run inning which came off just 57 balls and included 9 fours and 2 sixes. His opening partner, Alex Hales, also played aggressively scoring 40 runs off 37 balls with 6 fours and 1 six.

Skipper Eoin Morgan failed to perform in the practice match as he scored just 3 runs off 6 balls. Jos Buttler (46 off 38) and Liam Dawson (41 off 47) also played important role in the case.

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Chris Woakes scored two consecutive boundaries to take England through to their first win on the trip.

Earlier, India A, after being put in to bat first by England, piled up a huge score of 304/5 in 50 overs with the help of some fine innings by Ambati Rayudu (100 off 97, 11 fours, 1 six), skipper MS Dhoni (68* off 40, 8 fours, 2 sixes), Shikhar Dhawan (63 off 84, 8 fours, 1 six) and Yuvraj Singh (56 off 48, 6 fours, 2 sixes).

Mandeep Singh (8 off 24, 1 four), who opened the innings with Shikhar Dhawan, and Sanju Samson (4 off 7) failed to fire in the match. Hardik Pandya (4 off 7) remained unbeaten at the crease.

Before this practice match, England was beaten badly by 0-4 margin in the five-match Test series against India.

This was being looked as a special match from home team's point of view as MS Dhoni was captaining India for the one last time. The match, however, did not go as perfectly as India was hoping for but the skipper's belligerent inning of 68 runs, which also included 23 runs from the final over of Chris Woakes, was enough to make the day of Indian fans.