SA A v IND A, 2nd unofficial Test, Day 2 Review: India gain upper hand after an all-round day

India A finally had a satisfactory outing in the unofficial Test series as they reduced the South Africa A side to a moderate first inning total on the 2nd day of the second Test and began their innings on a good note. The home side added 64 further runs to their overnight score before being bowled out for 322. In reply, India A ended the day at 183/3, on the back of strong contributions from their top three.

Navdeep Saini struck in the 3rd over of the day to break the 6th wicket stand of 54 runs as Andile Phehlukwayo was caught behind for 15. Omphile Ramela and Shaun von Berg frustrated the India A bowlers by batting 24.3 overs together for just 48 runs. Ramela completed his fifty and scored 51 runs taking 179 balls but was cleaned up just before Lunch by Ankit Rajpoot. After the interval, Shahbaz Nadeem picked up two wickets and Saini picked up Von Berg’s wicket to wrap up South Africa A for just 322 after their openers put up a 167-run stand.

India A, who were bowled for 120 and 216 respectively in the first game, started off well with their openers Ravikumar Samarth and Sudip Chatterjee sharing a century stand. Samarth was the aggressor in their partnership as he brought up his fifty off 63 balls. Chatterjee scored 46 off 96 balls with five fours and a six before the 106-run opening stand came to an end with Dane Piedt cleaned up the left-hander.

Samarth got the scorecard moving along with Shreyas Iyer, who played his natural game extracting quick runs but the opener was trapped in front by Dane Paterson after scoring 77 off 113 balls with 13 fours. Iyer attacked the spinners Piedt and Von Borg as he hit three sixes against them. With a 6, 4 and 6 on consecutive balls off Von Borg, Iyer moved to 48 and eventually brought up his fifty off just 60 balls. Captain Karun Nair on other end decided to go unbeaten at stumps scoring just one run off the 35 balls he faced but was caught behind in the final few minutes of the day.

Brief Scores:

South Africa A first innings: 322/10 in 124.4 overs (Stephen Cook 98, Aiden Markram 74; Shahbaz Nadeem 4/118, Navdeep Saini 3/66)

India A first innings: 181/3 in 53.1 overs (Ravikumar Samarth 77, Shreyas Iyer 56*; Dane Paterson 1/33)