India ‘A’ suffer late jolts
chennai — Australia ‘A’ pacer Gurinder Sandhu picked up two quick wickets towards the last session to reduce India ‘A’ to 121 for three at the end of the third day’s play during their first unofficial ‘Test’ at the MA Chidambaram Stadium on Friday.
India ‘A’ have a lead of 154 runs and would look do add some quick runs on the last day and then put the inexperienced Australian line-up under pressure.
Earlier in the day, the visitors were bowled out for 268, after adding 83 runs to their overnight total of 185/4.
Left-arm spinner Pragyan Ojha was the pick of the bowlers again on Friday morning as he sent back the well settled Marcus Stoinis and Sandhu.
Leg-spinner Amit Mishra, who has been recalled to the Test squad for the tour to Sri Lanka, also joined in the act, removing wicketkeeper-batsman Matthew Wade and tailender Andrew Fekete.
Coming into bat in the second innings, the Indians were a little aggressive from the start with K.L. Rahul scoring a pacy 29 off 45 balls. But then the opener fell prey to a Travis Head delivery.
Abhinav Mukund and skipper Chesteshwar Pujara then built on the good start to race to 110, knitting a partnership of 71 runs.
It was Sandhu who finally broke the partnership getting rid of Mukund, and then managed to see the back of Pujara who scored 42. Brief Scores: India A 301 and 121/3 (Cheteshwar Pujara 42; Gurinder Sandhu 2/13) vs Australia A 1st innings 268 all out (Marcus Stoinis 77; Pragyan Ojha 5/85) after Day 3. —