India 'A' win quadrangular series final against Australia 'A' by 57 runs

India ‘A’ have beaten Australia ‘A’ by 57 runs in the final of the one-day quadrangular series also involving South Africa ‘A’ and National Performance Squad, with Mandeep Singh’s knock at the top of the order and India’s spin attack proving to be too hot to handle for the hosts.

Choosing to bat first, India ‘A’ finished their innings at a score of 266/4, though they looked to be headed for a much bigger total at one stage. The bulk of the Indian team's scoring was done by opening batsman Mandeep Singh (95 off 108 balls), who was also the most chirpy fielder in the second innings.

Mandeep also showed a knack of finding the boundary at frequent intervals, combining well with Shreyas Iyer (41 off 64 balls) and Manish Pandey (61 off 71 balls) in the middle order. However, every wicket was followed by a lull in the scoring rate, and Kedar Jadhav failed to provide an aggressive finish.

The Australia ‘A’ innings also seemed to be cruising along in reply, but were torn to shreds by two breakthroughs. The first headway that the Indian team made was by part-time spinner Karun Nair, who had only bowled once previously in the tournament.

Nair broke the fledgling 51-run partnership between Cameron Bancroft and Nic Maddinson, dismissing both batsmen in quick succession. Alex Ross and Peter Handscomb put on a 3^rd wicket partnership thereon, again taking Australia ‘A’ to a comfortable position. However, following their departures, again in quick succession between 35 and 40 overs, the tail was cleaned up in no time, with the batsmen finding no way to counter India’s spinners.

While Dhawal Kulkarni was the only Indian seamer to cause any problem to the Australian batsmen, the spin trio of Nair, Axar Patel and Yuzvendra Chahal did well to strangle the host team. The last 6 wickets fell for 28 runs within a period of 6 overs.

The Indian team’s victory completes a remarkable turnaround in fortunes, from when they had been dismissed for a total of 55 in their first match of the quadrangular tournament three weeks ago. Captain Manish Pandey finishes the tournament as the highest scorer across all the four teams.

Brief Scores – India ‘A’ 266/4 (Mandeep 95, Manish 61; Stoinis 1/30) beat Australia ‘A’ 209 all out (Handscomb 43; Chahal 4/34, Kulkarni 2/22, Nair 2/29, Axar 2/33) by 57 runs