KL Rahul and Abhimanyu Easwaran again failed to make an impression as India A slumped to 73/5 at the end of the second day’s play in the second four-dayer against Australia A at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Friday.
Earlier, Australia A took a 62-run lead thanks to opener Marcus Harris’ 223-run total of 74. For India-A, fast bowler Prasidh Krishna took four wickets while fast bowler Mukesh Kumar took three wickets.
In their second innings, India A were once again in trouble as they went from 31/1 to 56/5. Wicketkeeper-batsman Dhruv Jurrell will have to stage a rescue for India A, who lead by 11 runs at the end of day two. Jurel is unbeaten with 19 runs while Nitish Kumar Reddy is unbeaten with nine runs.
In the morning, resuming from an unbeaten 26, Harris hit his 47th first-class half-century and strengthened his case to open the batting alongside Usman Khawaja in the upcoming Border-Gavaskar Trophy.
Harris scored 74 runs off 138 balls and hit five fours. He was also lucky to get a reprieve on 48 when Tanush Kotian looked to have found the edge of Harris’ bat before being caught at first slip, but the on-field umpire denied it to India. got angry He was also helped by valuable contributions from Jimmy Pearson (30), Nathan McAndrew (26 not out) and Corey Rocchicioli (35).
In India A’s second innings, Rahul and Easwaran added 25 runs for the loss before the latter dismissed McAndrew. From there, the decline began for India AB, with Sai Sudharsan slipping for second off BO Webster, while Ruturaj Gaikwad was dismissed lbw by a McAndrew nip-backer.
Rahul had a mind-blowing moment when he didn’t come up with a shot and tried to defend with Rocchicioli’s pad, but the ball deflected off his pad and onto the stumps. His return of 4 and 10 jeopardizes India’s plans to possibly open him in the first Test at Perth, with Rohit Sharma ruled out for personal reasons.
It didn’t help India either as Easwaran scored 0 and 12 in the same game. Webster struck again on the day when he nicked Devdutt Padikal to first slip before Jurrell and Nitish moved around to reach the stumps, another topsy-turvy of red-ball cricket at the iconic MCG. was the day
Brief scores: India A 161 and 73/5 (Dhruv Jurrell 19 not out, BO Webster 2-14, Nathan McAndrew 2-22) lead Australia A 223 (Marcus Harris 74, Prasidh Krishna 4-50, Mukesh Kumar 3- 41) by 11 runs