India A inflict innings defeat on Bangladesh A
India A crushed Bangladesh A by an innings and 32 runs to win the one-off three-day unofficial Test held at Bangalore. Resuming the day’s play at 36/2, the visitors were bowled out in the morning session itself as the Indian bowlers combined well to carry on the good work done by the batsmen thus giving India A a huge victory.
Skipper Mominul Haque and wicketkeeper-batsman Liton Das were the only Bangladeshi batsmen who offered any kind of resistance, with the pair putting on 61 runs for the third wicket. The partnership was broken by Ishwar Pandey, who took 3 wickets in the innings, and that led to a mini collapse with Bangladesh losing three more wickets with the addition of just 5 runs on the board.
Sabbir Rahman, who had scored a brilliant century in the first innings couldn’t recreate the magic this time around as he along with Shuvagata Hom were dismissed for nought. Nasir Hossain didn’t fare much better with a score of 1 and it seemed Bangladesh A were in danger of getting all out for a score less than 100, struggling at 87/6.
Mominul, however, avoided the embarrassment as he played a skipper’s role bringing up his fifty off 87 balls, to propel the Bangladesh A total to 120. However, when Jayant Yadav, who followed up with his four wickets in the first innings with three this time around, dismissed Mominul, that was the end of the road for the visitors.
Tail enders Saqlain Sajib and Shafiul Islam tried to delay the inevitable with a 30-run partnership, but it was always going to be delaying the inevitable and nothing more. Yadav once again broke the partnership scalping the wicket of Sajib and when Ravindra Jadeja had Jubair Hossain stumped by Naman Ojha, that was the end of the match as the visitors opted not to send in the injured Rubel Hossain out to the middle.
The role played by the batsmen in this huge victory cannot be undermined with skipper Shikhar Dhawan smashing an aggressive 150 and was well supported by the youngsters Vijay Shankar and Karun Nair who made 86 and 71 respectively in their only innings with the bat.
The visitors will be hugely disappointed at how the entire tour turned out in spite of boasting a highly competitive squad. In fact, 6 of the playing 11 that featured in this match has been named in the 14-man squad set to take on Australia in the first Test starting on October 9.
Their only victory on the tour was the second one-dayer which they accomplished on the back of Nasir Hossain’s all-round heroics. They lost the other two one-dayers as well as the three-day match against an under-strength Karnataka side before being condemned to their biggest defeat of the tour in this match.
Scorecard:
Bangladesh A 228 & 151
India A 411/5 decl.
Result – India A won by an innings and 32 runs