IND vs WA X1: India loses by 36 runs; Will World Cup be a tough road as visitors lose the practice match?

IND vs WA X1: Thursday's second unofficial T20 World Cup warm-up match in Perth saw Team India lose to Western Australia XI by a score of 36 runs. In Rohit Sharma's absence, KL Rahul served as the Men in Blue's captain, but despite his heroic knock of 74 runs, the team lost.

The Indian management decided to rest players like Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, and Suryakumar Yadav when they needed to score 169 runs to win, but the other players were ineffective, with only Rahul standing out in the field.

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Fans question Rohit's absence

Given that Rohit's name had been included in the Playing XI, his absence was all the more unexpected. More unexpected was the fact that Virat Kohli, who was once again rested and was left off the playing XI along with Suryakumar Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal, fielded for India.

Every action Kohli took, whether he was fielding at cover, point gully, or close to the boundary, evoked roaring applause from the crowd.

Team India's average performance resulted in loss

In their respective 20 overs, the visitors were only able to score 132/7.

The outcome of the second match is somewhat unexpected after winning the first warm-up. especially in light of the batters' lack of effort. With 74 off 55 balls, Rahul led all scorers for India. Initially, he scored 39 runs off the first 39 balls. Then, he became more focused and scored 35 runs off the next 16 balls. Rishabh Pant was dismissed for 9, Deepak Hooda for 6, Hardik Pandya for 17, and Dinesh Karthik for 10, and the other batters—aside from Rahul—cut a dismal figure.

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Though out of form, Harshal Patel took 2/27, and R Ashwin took 3/32, taking all three wickets in one over. This gave India some encouragement.

While Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Pandya, and Hooda failed to secure a wicket, Arshdeep Singh maintained the situation's tension with figures of 1/25. India still has to play two more exhibition games against New Zealand and Australia on October 17 and October 19, respectively, before facing Pakistan in the T20 World Cup opener.

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