Kedhar Jadhav's unbeaten 93 helps India A seal final berth with six-wicket victory over NPS
India A continued its fine run of results since the disastrous opener against Australia A where they were bundled out for a paltry score of 55, by defeating Australia’s National Performance Squad by six wickets in their penultimate match of the group stages to secure a spot in the final of the Quadrangular series which has South Africa A as the fourth side.
After the bowlers did a commendable job of restricting the opposition to a below-par total of 207/8 in their 50 overs, Shreyas Iyer and Kedhar Jadhav stringed together a 134-run for the fourth wicket that all but secured the victory for Rahul Dravid’s side after a nervy start to the Indian run chase. Jadhav remained unbeaten on 93 as India A sealed the match in their favour with more than 11 overs to spare.
India A got off to a brilliant start after skipper Manish Pandey won the toss and opted to bowl first with Varun Aaron getting a wicket off his very first delivery sending opener Caleb Paul Jewell back to the pavilion for nought. Wicketkeeper Sam Harper, coming in at No 3, played a measured yet aggressive knock to help NPS back on track forging a useful 76-run stand with Matt Renshaw and then a 52-run partnership for the third wicket with skipper Mathew Short.
Though the NPS were going at a healthy run rate of above 5 about the midway mark, part-time spinner Shreyas Iyer’s dismissal of Harper changed the course of the match with his teammates failing to build on useful starts. Eventually, it was a matter of playing out the 50 overs for NPS as the runs dried up and it was Clint Hinchliffe’s knock of 43 that helped his side cross the 200-run mark.
If the India A batsmen felt that there were going to have it easy in their run-chase, NPS seamer Tom O’Donnell ensured otherwise with a brilliant spell of fast bowling with the new ball picking up three wickets in a six-over burst conceding just 11 runs. Openers Karun Nair and Mandeep Singh, as well as skipper Manish Pandey, all departed with just 41 runs on the board, but fortunately for India A, no other NPS bowler apart from O'Donnell posed a threat once his spell was done.
Shreyas Iyer and Kedhar Jadhav put together 134 runs for the fourth wicket that took India A to the brink of victory with the latter being the more aggressive as Iyer took on the responsibility of holding things together at one end. It was a mature innings from the youngster which was overshadowed by Jadhav’s brilliant knock that included 10 boundaries as no batsmen from either side failed to hit a six during the entire match.
It was O’Donnell himself who broke the partnership picking up his fourth wicket but in the end, it was a mere formality for India A with the only disappointment being Jadhav missing out on a well-deserved century as he ran out of runs before the target was achieved.
Brief scores: NPS 207/8 in 50 overs (Sam Harper 72, Varun Aaron 3/58) lost to India A 208/4 in 38.2 overs (Kedhar Jadhav 93*, Shreyas Iyer 62, Tom O’Donnell 4/29) by six wickets.