India A vs Australia A: 2nd unofficial four-day match: Date, time and predicted line-ups

A lot of talk in and around India is surrounding the long home season in Tests that awaits the Indian Cricket team, starting with the three-match Test series against New Zealand in Kanpur next week.

But in far away Australia, another Indian team- the ‘A’ side- will begin a quest of their own, which will be to level the two-match four-day unofficial series against Australia ‘A’ , which is presently on in Brisbane.

The ‘A’ side, who are led by wicket-keeper Naman Ojha, put out a spirited display in the first match which took place at the same venue last week, but lost by 3 wickets, and it was the bowlers, who kept the side in the game for the most part.

The fast bowling trio of Varun Aaron, Shardul Thakur and Hardik Pandya will once again be vital to the team’s success if they are level the series in the second game starting on Thursda., Both Aaron and Thakur can consider themselves a bit unlucky to have not been picked in the squad for the series against New Zealand and this game in Australia provides them with another opportunity to further enhance their chances of receiving a call-up in the nearby future.

Giving the three quicks company will be the off-spinner Jayant Yadav, who also showed a lot of pluck, taking four wickets in the two innings combined and along with him, Shahbaz Nadeem will also look to shine after a poor outing last week.

It is in the batting department that Ojha and head coach Rahul Dravid will have issues to ponder over. Manish Pandey continued from where he left off in the quadrangular series with a sparkling knock of 77 in the first innings, but barring him, there wasn’t any other sizeable contribution from the rest, throughout the game.

With KL Rahul having a superb last month in international cricket, the job of being Number 2 to Wriddhiman Saha in Tests has just become even harder for Ojha, who will now need to step his game to the next level to impress upon the selectors.

Faiz Fazal and Akhil Herwadkar will need to give the team a solid start and hope that the likes of Shreyas Iyer, Pandey, Ojha and Karun Nair build on the foundation given by them.

For Australia ‘A’, Joe Burns will once again be in the limelight as he looks to make a return to national colours for the upcoming season and captain Peter Handscomb, who has had a good run so far will also look to get some more runs under his belt.

India ‘A’ will need to be wary of the three-man pace attack of Daniel Worrall, Chadd Sayers and David Moody and if they can tackle that threat, then we can certainly hope for some runs from the bats of the India A players.

Match: India A vs Australia A

Venue: Allan Border Field, Brisbane

Likely squads:

India ‘A’: Faiz Fazal. Akhil Herwadkar, Shreyas Iyer, Manish Pandey, Karun Nair, Naman Ojha(C & WK), Hardik Pandya, Jayant Yadav,Shardul Thakur, Varun Aaron, Shahbaz Nadeem.

Australia ‘A: Cameron Bancroft(WK), Joe Burns, Travis Dean, Peter Handscomb(C), Marcus Stoinis, Beau Webster, Sam Whiteman, Chadd Sayers, Mitchell Swepson, Daniel Worrall, David Moody.

Date: 15th-18th September 2016

Time: 5:00 A.M IST.