It was probably the sternest test for young southpaw Suresh Raina as compared to any of his teammates in the Board Presidents’ XI.A day after being named in the squad, he had no other option but to get a good score for grabbing the vacant number six slot in the final XI for the first Test at Nagpur and his innings of 62 here today could just push his case.Raina was a class act throughout his innings as he looked prepared and showed the right temperament needed for the longer verison of the game with excellent footwork on both the front and back-foot.His balance was perfect, and more than anything else, he faced the England pace trio with confidence and conviction. After his innings today one feels he might just edge out his home-state skipper Mohd Kaif, for the simple reason that he has had more success in recent outings.One thing that Raina might have to guard against could be the rush of blood, which in the end brought about his downfall off Monty Panesar, just when one thought a century was on the cards. But before Raina’s innings it was Gautam Gambhir all the way. He reminded the selectors that he was not totally out of touch by scoring a century. Gambhir was at his best against the spinners but cautious against the seamers and most of his strokes came off the middle of the bat. He scored 108 before spooning a simple catch to point off a Andrew Flintoff slower one. And that too on a day when no other batsmen were able to show the class that Gambhir and Raina displayed. The English bowling came to life after the second new ball when the visitors bounced back to crash through the BP XI middle-order forcing skipper Venugopala Rao to declare at 342 for eight. Flintoff and Harmison picked three wickest each and both were able to generate good bounce off the wicket, but the worrying factor could be that none were able to reverse it with the old ball. “Definitely, we bowled well today,” said Flintoff. “The three seamers bowled 22 overs apiece or thereabouts, and it’s important going into a series against India that we have the overs under out belts. All of us are confident about where we are now,” FLintoff added.And when the visitors batted for the second time, BP XI was able to scalp one soon when Munaf got Andrew Strauss to edge one to the slip.The bowling might just lift England’s spirits in a dull camp.BRIEF SCORESEngland (1st innings): 238 and 10 for 1 vs BP XI 342 for 8 decl (G Gambhir 108, S Raina 62, A Flintoff 3/74, S Harmison 3/72)
