NEWS
Follow UsAfter five straight defeats, India ‘A’ registered their first victory on the tour of Australia on August 18 (Sunday) in Mackay as the Minnu Mani-led team thumped Australia ‘A’ by 172 runs to get on the board.
The victory for India was set up by young leg-spinner Priya Mishra, who, playing her first game of the tour, bamboozled Australia ‘A’ batters, finishing with stupendous figures of 5-2-14-5.
On the day, the India ‘A’ women batted first for the third game running in the 50-over series. And the tourists got off to a disastrous start, losing Shweta Sehrawat for a golden duck on the seventh ball of the game. Kiran Navgire (25) and Uma Chetry (16) steadied the ship a bit and added 43 runs together, but both batters fell in the space of two overs to leave India ‘A’ struggling at 43/3.
This was when the visitors were buoyed by a fine 104-run stand between Tejal Hasabnis (50) and Raghvi Bist (53), both of whom posted half-centuries.
After the pair fell in quick succession, Sajeevan Sajana (40) and skipper Mani (34) chipped in with fine contributions down the order to take India ‘A’ to 243/9 at the end of 50 overs.
Australia ‘A’ would have been confident of chasing down the target, considering each of the first two games saw them knock off 200+ targets with ease, but their chase never got going.
Charli Knott fell in the fourth over as the opening partnership could add only 19, and then Meghna Singh got the huge wicket of skipper Tahlia McGrath, disturbing the opposition skipper’s timber. At 20/2, Australia ‘A’ were in a slight spot of bother in the chase.
At 48/2, the hosts had rebuilt decently, but this was when India unleashed their secret weapon in Priya Mishra. The young leggie, who was the highest wicket-taker in the 2023/24 Senior Women’s One Day Trophy, ran through the rest of the Australian batting line-up as the hosts folded for a paltry 72.
It was a sorry looking scorecard for Australia ‘A’ as only three batters posted double-digit scores. Outside the top four, no batter scored more than five runs, with scores of the last seven batters reading 1, 2, 5, 1, 0, 0, 0. Extras (9) was the fourth-highest scorer for Australia ‘A’ on the day.
The victory today should give India ‘A’ some momentum heading into the four-day game in Gold Coast, which starts from August 22.
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