ICC Champions Trophy: India beats New Zealand by 45 runs warm-up game

London: With the help of a dominant bowling performance, India comfortably won the rain-affected ICC Champions Trophy warm-up match against New Zealand by 45 runs (D/L method) at the Kennington Oval ground here on Sunday.

Winning the toss, New Zealand elected to bat first but Indian bowlers had some other plans. Shami bagged 3 wickets for 47 runs in 8 overs to dismantle the Kiwis' batting lineup and restrict them to mere 189 runs in 38.4 overs.

Bhuvneshwar Kumar, continued his IPL form, and claimed three wickets for only 28 runs in 6.4 overs. Ravindra Jadeja was almost unplayable for New Zealand batsmen as he picked up 2 wickets in his 4 overs and gave only 8 runs.

Ravichandran Ashwin (1/32, 6 overs) and Umesh Yadav (1/11, 4 overs) were the other successful bowlers, while Jasprit Bumrah (0/14, 4 overs) remained wicket-less.

Opener Luke Ronchi was the highest run aggregator for Kiwis as he scored 66 runs off 63 balls with 6 fours and 2 sixes, while James Neesham remained unbeaten at 46 runs off 47 balls, hitting 6 boundaries.

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None other batsmen, including Martin Guptil (9), skipper Kane Williamson (8), Neil Broom (0), Corey Anderson (13), Mitchell Santner (12) failed to execute their plans in front of an upbeat Indian bowling.

Coming in to chase down a modest target of 190 runs, India lost Ajinkya Rahane (9) early in the innings, but Shikhar Dhawan (40 off 59, 5 fours) and captain Virat Kohli (52* off 55, 6 fours) put up a brilliant 68-run partnership for the second wicket to stabilise the inning.

Dinesh Karthik was a big disappointment as he could not open his account before going back to pavilion on the ninth delivery he faced. MS Dhoni also remained unbeaten at 17 runs off 21 balls with 2 fours and a six.

India was looking in a strong position at 129/3 (26 overs) when the rain played the spoil game. India was found 45 runs ahead of New Zealand with three wickets down when the authorities announced that the match cannot proceed.

The win surely would have boosted the morale of team India as they would look forward to their first league stage match against arch rival Pakistan on June 4.