India A vs New Zealand A series review: India churning cricketers by the dozen

Ashok Menaria

A superb display of cricket by the India A side in the three unofficial ODIs against New Zealand A resulted in the boys in blue ensuring a clean sweep in every sense. Yes, the Kiwis did put up a good fight in the last ODI, putting up a huge total on the board and then taking the game to the very last over with the ball, but it was the India A side which had the last say.

Leading the ‘A’ team in these ODIs was the U-19 World Cup star Unmukt Chand, who marshaled his troops with great efficiency and the typical cockiness which the Indian audiences associate Delhi-based players with.

Leading from the front, Chand churned out some useful runs at the top of the order to set a solid platform for the middle-order. The young right-handed batsman seemed to share a good on-field rapport with his opening partner and the senior-most player in the side, Robin Uthappa, who also produced a couple of commendable knocks, including a brilliant 103. Robin is certainly knocking (read: banging) on the doors of the national selectors and one could quite clearly see that intent in his batting. It was evident that he was utterly disappointed and didn’t want to leave the field when he was given out in the third ODI earlier today.

The young quicks, Sandeep Sharma and Basant Mohanty, were good in patches, but quite mediocre overall. The same can be said about the tall, lanky leg break bowler Rahul Sharma.

While it was thought that Sharma would trouble the Kiwis with his ability to generate bounce, he failed to make a big impact in the series, except for the game in which he finished with figures of 3/45.

Jalaj Saxena, who was so good in the longer format of the game, got only one ODI game, where he was quite expensive. Between them, they shared 10 wickets in three games. That’s four bowlers who gave pretty ordinary performances. One wonders, who took the rest of the wickets? Well, the answer for those of you who did not follow this particular series is – Ashok Menaria.

Standing out with his all-round performance, the left-handed Menaria (much lauded by his IPL skipper Rahul Dravid) posed one of the biggest threats to the Kiwis (with bat and ball) and turned games around on more than one occasion.

He brought his best to the party with a batting average of 53 at a strike rate of 127.71, smashing nine fours and eight humongous sixes in two matches (coming in the middle order, mind you). And despite getting out without scoring in one game, he ensured that he chipped in with his left arm orthodox bowling, which turned out to be quite something.

The New Zealanders found Menaria’s bowling really tough to score off. It was, in fact, unplayable at times. No wonder he finished as the highest wicket taker in the series, with 10 wickets to his name at an average of 12.60, a strike rate of 16.8, an economy of 4.50, and a five-wicket haul!

Giving him able company in the batting department were Mandeep Singh and Kedar Jadhav, who also contributed to the victories. The youngest boys, Sanju Samson and Sachin Baby, didn’t get much of an opportunity to showcase their talent, but they have a long way to go before being forgotten or written off.

Inarguably, the man who stole the show was Ashok Menaria, who will look to continue his good form in the upcoming domestic season. With the selectors being already overloaded with options for Team India now (with stars like Virender Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh, Zaheer Khan and Gautam Gambhir being overlooked), chances of Uthappa making a comeback into the team (or someone like Chand/Menaria getting a debut game) soon look bleak. But, one’s got to keep performing consistently without expecting much, who knows when things might change?