India A win quadrangular series after defeating Australia A by 4 wickets in final

India A jubilant after winning the quadrangular series

India A have won the Quadrangular A-Team One-Day series after defeating Australia A by 4 wickets in the finals held at Darwin on Saturday. The Robin-Uthappa led team, which has lost only one game in the tournament – their first against Australia A, chased down 275 in 48.4 overs, thanks to a late surge from all-rounders Rishi Dhawan and Akshay Patel.

Australia bat first

Having opted to bat first, home captain Cameron White and Phil Hughes put on a formidable 146-run partnership for the opening wicket before Dhawal Kulkarni dismissed the latter for a hard-earned 51 off 70 balls in the 27th over. Hughes’ wicket brought Alex Doolan to the crease, who couldn’t make much use of the start that he got, getting out to the left-arm spin of Akshar Patel for 24 runs to his name.

White, meanwhile, looked in sparkling form all through, bringing up his century in the 31st over and looked set to take Australia A to a total of above 300; however, his dismissal in the 44th over, when at 137 off 150, sparked a mini-collapse. Moises Henriques and Mitchell Marsh fell in quick succession for single digit scores before Ben Cutting’s cameo of 35 off 21 balls ensured that the hosts had a competitive total on the board.

Indian top order fail to step up

India A began their run-chase in a shaky fashion, as skipper Robin Uthappa, Manan Vohra and Ambati Rayudu all fell within the first 15 overs of the innings, leaving India tottering at 51/3. That meant that Manoj Tiwary and Kedar Jadhav had to do a rebuilding job, which they did splendidly. Both batsmen struck half-centuries before Cutting broke the threatening 82-run partnership, having Tiwary caught at long leg off a well-directed bouncer.

Jadhav brought up his half-century off 48 balls and was extremely calm during the run-chase, just starting to make the rest of the team feel confident. Right on cue, Cutting struck again, when the right hander was on 78 off 73 balls with 6 boundaries and 2 sixes, and seemed to all but end India A’s hopes of securing victory.

All-rounders to the rescue

Rishi and Akshar, who came together at 182/6 with the team needing another 93 runs to win, though, hadn’t given up just yet and began resurrecting the innings by rotating the strike regularly. They were content at scoring ones and twos at the start and, in doing so, ensured that the required run-rate didn’t escalate.

Needing 45 runs from 6 overs, the pair decided to go after Cameron Boyce, the leg-spinner, and took 15 runs off his 6th and final over. It brought the asking-rate down to a run a ball, and the Indians scored a boundary each in the next 4 overs to eat away at the target set by the hosts. Rishi reached his 50 with a boundary off Kane Richardson in the 48th over before Akshar hit the winning runs in the next over off the bowling of Clint Mckay, giving India a narrow 4-wicket victory in what turned out to be a fitting final between the two best teams of the tourney.

Meanwhile, in the third-place match between South Africa A and National Performance Squad (NPS), the efforts of Reeza Hendricks and Rilee Rossouw with the bat gave the South Africans a comfortable 7-wicket win over Australia’s National Performance squad.