India-A made heavy weather of chasing New Zealand-A’s 173 in the concluding one dayer at the Dr. Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy ACA-VDCA international stadium on Sunday. Useful middle and lower order partnerships bailed out the home side, as it laboured to a three wicket victory.
For the fifth wicket, Abhimanyu Easwaran (49, 6x4, 1x6) and B. Aparajith added 52 while Shardul Thakur (40, 3x4, 3x6) and Karn Sharma (38 n.o., 3x4, 1x6) put on 65. Thakur incidentally struck his three big ones on the trot off Matt Henry.
The host’s response initially was anything but inspiring, four batsmen gone for 30 with barely half a dozen overs completed. Prashant Chopra was caught behind, while Ankeet Bawane, swatting Lockie Ferguson through square, was held by point Glenn Phillips.
Rishabh Pant’s reputation took a tumble with the bails, as he attempted to play Kuggeleijn away from his body and chopped the ball onto the stumps. Deepak Hooda’s upper cut off Ferguson was clutched by third man Colin Munro.
Opener Abhimanyu seemed set for his half century ably supported by Aparajith. The latter was then rapped on the pads on a forward defensive off Todd Astle’s straighter one. Abhimanyu fell one short of a 50 to a splendid catch by Tom Blundell rushing in from the deep to grab the chance at backward point.
Blazing sunshine from the morning would have really tested the tourists with their predominantly black attire.
The move to bat first didn’t exactly pay rich dividends and the exercise ended with 173.
Karn and Basil Thampi in their first overs proved most productive, each getting a centurion from the previous games.
Karn’s flighted offering was too tempting for Glenn Phillips to resist, who stepped out but chose to defend, missed the line and Pant did the rest. After sixes over long on and square leg, Tom Bruce fell in similar fashion but to Shahbaz Nadeem.
In a fine exhibition of pace bowling, Thampi missed a hat-trick.
With his second delivery he had George Worker’s off stump uprooted, when the latter played across. Off the next, Blundell tried to clip the Kerala speedster but was rapped on the pads instead. Off Thampi’s fifth delivery, Tim Seifert flicked, but Karn at short square leg snapped up the sharp chance.
The scores: New Zealand-A 173 in 44.2 overs (George Worker 39, Henry Nicholls 42; Basil Thampi three for 19) lost to India-A 174 for seven in 32.1 overs (Abhimanyu Easwaran 49, Shardul Thakur 40, Karn Sharma 38 n.o. ; Lockie Ferguson three for 24) .
