India A vs England Lions, 2nd Unofficial Test, Day 3, Review: Hosts seal the series with an innings victory

The writing was on the wall for England Lions after their first innings failure in the second Unofficial Test against India A in Mysore. If it was a collective effort from India A bowlers in the first innings, the second essay saw the leggie Mayank Markande run through the opposition batting and pick a sensational five-wicket haul. Eventually, the home side won the two-match series besides winning the One-Dayers as well.

The day began with the Lions at 24/0 as their openers walked out to bat with an aim to delay the inevitable and put up a fight. But Max Holden was trapped in front of the stumps by Jalaj Saxena in the first half hour of the play itself. Sam Hain should decent resistance to support Ben Duckett who scored a quick-fire half-century. However, the latter was snaffled by the same bowler in a similar fashion to his opening partner.

Mayank Markande sent back Ollie Pope for just seven runs and the extreme resistance from Hain was ended by Shahbaz Nadeem as both the batsmen were dismissed leg before. Sam Billings looked good but couldn’t convert his start again after reaching 20 thanks to Navdeep Saini.

Markande wrecks havoc

The middle and lower-middle order of the visitors then were baffled completely by the leggie Mayank Markande. He ran through their line-up single-handedly to seal the victory for his side. He picked the wickets of Lewis Gregory, Steven Mullaney, Dom Bess and Tom Bailey to end with the figures of 5/31.

Gregory showed heart to fight but ran out of partners to be dismissed last for 44. England Lions were bundled out for a meagre total of 180 runs in the 54th over as India A won the match by an innings and 88 runs. All the other four bowlers contributed to the team’s cause and it was a happy ending of a tour for the home side.

Brief Scores

India A, 1st Innings: 392/10 in 114.4 overs (Abhimanyu Easwaran 117, KL Rahul 81; Zak Chappell 4/60)

England Lions, 1st innings: 140/10 in 48.4 overs (Ollie Pope 25, Max Holden 19; Navdeep Saini 3/30)

England Lions, 2nd innings: 180/10 in 53.3 overs (Ben Duckett 50, L Gregory 44; M Markande 5/31 )

Result: India A won by an innings and 88 runs.

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