Australia A beat India A by 10-wicket in the unofficial test

Australia A beat India A by 10-wicket in the unofficial test: The fourth and final day of the first unofficial match between India A and Australia A ended with an easy 10-wicket win for the Australian’s as India A seemed to struggle from the very first day at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai. The visitors now have a 1-0 lead in the 2-match series.

The final day began with India on 267 for 6, their innings came to fold at 274 after adding seven runs to previous day’s score in 88.3 overs, giving an easy chasing lead of 61 runs to the Australian team. In response, Australian A openers Cameron Bancroft and Usman Khawaja looked in a mood to finish the game off quickly. Khawaja went on to score 41 runs off 23 balls and Bancroft supported him well and in the IInd innings, after scoring a match winning 150 in the Ist innings. He played a short innings of 14 deliveries scoring 21 runs backing up his partner who hit seven boundaries and a six to pocket the game for his team. The target was overhauled only in 6.1 overs.

Gurinder Sandhu and Steve O’Keefe were the star bowlers picking up four wickets each in the second innings. In the beginning of second innings, Shreyas Gopal was the first to walk back for the India A team taken by Sandhu, which was followed by his second wicket Varun Aaron. The innings came to an end after O’Keefe took his last wicket in the form of Shradul Thakur, caught by Joe Burns.

The match was more on Australia’s side since the Indian first innings ended at the total of 135 runs, though a backing up performance in the second innings would have brought them back to the game but they were unable to take the starts to build something substantial. Abhinav Mukund (59), Virat Kohli (45), Shreyas Iyer (48), Naman Ojha (30) and Baba Aparajith (30), all of them failed to capitalize, as the Indian’s kept on loosing wickets at regular intervals. A big partnership was missing that could have kindled some hopes of saving the game.

Brief Scores:

India A- 135 & 274 in 88.3 overs (Abhinav Mukund 59, Virat Kohli 45; Gurinder Sandhu 4-76, Steve O’Keefe 4-88)

Australia A – 349 in 107.5 overs and 62/0 in 6.1 overs (Cameron Bancroft 21*, Usman Khawaja 41*) win by 10 wickets.