LONDON — India were made to sweat by Essex who reached 237-5 on the second day of their tour match at Chelmsford on Thursday with their discomfort under sweltering sunshine compounded by fears over the fitness of key spinner Ravichandran Ashwin.

Virat Kohli's team, playing their only warm-up match before the Test series against England gets under way next Wednesday, were dismissed for 395 after resuming on 322-6. The home team then reached 237-5 at stumps after half-centuries from Tom Westley (57) and Michael Pepper (68).

Off-spinner Ashwin has played no part — with just one day remaining on Friday — after taking a knock to the right hand during practice.

Dinesh Karthik top-scored with 82 for India having failed to add to his overnight score while Hardik Pandya hit 51. On Wednesday, Kohli scored 68 while KL Rahul (58) and Murali Vijay (53) also spent time in the middle.

Leg spinner Rashid hits back at

Vaughan over 'stupid' comments

England leg-spinner Adil Rashid has hit back at Michael Vaughan after the former captain described his selection for the first Test against India as "ridiculous".

Rashid was included in a 13-man squad even though he has opted out of playing first-class County Championship cricket for Yorkshire this season.

His selection for next week's first Test on the back of his one-day form has not gone down well with Vaughan, an ex-teammate of Rashid's for Yorkshire, who described his selection as "stab in the back for county cricket".

Writing in the Telegraph newspaper, he added: "It basically says our county game, the finishing school for our cricketers, does not matter any more and that it is irrelevant."

Rashid, who won the last of his 10 Test caps in Chennai more than 18 months ago, said Vaughan was "talking nonsense" and said his opinions "did not matter to anybody".

"When I mentioned at the start of the year I will not be playing red-ball cricket, he tweeted something then," he said in an interview with the BBC. "He was being controversial and saying his stupid things then too.

"I don't think he has an agenda against me. I played under and with him but sometimes ex-players come out and start talking nonsense about current players.

"There will be people out there who are not happy. There will be haters, like the pundits who are saying it is a disgrace. That is not my fault."

Vaughan could not resist another dig at Rashid on Friday, tweeting: "I am stupid for wanting someone to prepare to play the No. 1 Test team in the world by playing a 4 day game with the red ball."

Yorkshire chief executive Mark Arthur said the county were "very surprised" by Rashid's recall. The player responded by casting doubt on his future at Headingley.

"If they treat me like they have done, don't see any value in me and are disrespectful to me, I have to think about the future in terms of which county I play for," said Rashid.

National selector Ed Smith has made it clear that in order to be eligible for Test selection next year Rashid must return to the domestic four-day game. — AFP