THE Indians' final warm-up match before the start of their Test series against England brought a five-wicket victory against Derbyshire.
With the sides batting 45 overs each on the last day, Derbyshire reached 156-3 for a lead of 141 and the tourists got the runs they needed to overhaul them at 143-5 in 36.3 overs at the 3aaa County Ground.
The Indians took to the field first with an 11 that may well be a big clue to their starting line-up for Trent Bridge next week and took a wicket in the third over when Bhuvneshwar Kumar produced a good ball to have Ben Slater caught at second slip for nought at 0-1.
Chesney Hughes made a positive start with four fours in his 20 but he edged a cut at Stuart Binny's second ball and was caught behind by MS Dhoni at 32-2.
Ishant Sharma had his best bowling spell of the match so far with 0-10 in his seven overs – and only two no-balls – but there were no further wickets for the Indians until Paul Borrington was lbw to Mohammed Shami for 29 at 78-3.
Billy Godleman completed his second half-century of the match and finished 56 not out to follow his first innings unbeaten 67, with Alex Hughes adding 36 not out.
Indian opener Shikhar Dhawan fell cheaply for the second time, lbw to Matt Higginbottom for nine at 13-1, but Murali Vijay (41) and Ajinkya Rahane (39) avoided further loss until both retired out.
Rohit Sharma was caught at slip off David Wainwright for 10 and Wriddhiman Saha was caught at deep backward square leg off Greg Cork for 19 but a low-key contest came to an end with Gautam Gambhir 21 not out and Ravi Jadeja nought not out.
