Australia A starts the tri series with a win over South Africa A

Australia A starts the tri series with a win over South Africa A: The tri-series between India A, Australia A and South Africa A initiated today with the first match taking place at the Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai between Australia A and South Africa A. South Africa won the toss electing to bat first and the decision seemed to work well, even though the runs came slow they managed to save the wickets. Australia A got its first breakthrough in the 14^th over when Elgar playing at 28 lost his wicket to Boyce, giving away a catch to Pattinson. Hendricks on the other hand kept rotating the strike and continued with the new man at crease de Bruyn, who couldn’t make the partnership last long, whereas Boyce gave the Aussie A team another wicket in form of Bruyn. He departed scoring 17 runs off 20 deliveries leaving South Africa A at 102/2 in 24.4 overs.

After three balls the South African innings appeared to fall apart as the only set batsman Hendricks got out at the score of 43, giving Agar his first and one of the significant wickets. K Zondo the next batsman in stayed on the crease for some time giving hopes to the South African side but he failed to make it big and lost his wicket at 21 after facing 31 deliveries, leaving the South African side stranded at the score of 142/6 by the end of the 38^th over, Coulter-Nile was the one to strike this time. After the wicket of Zondo there was no stopping to the tail that followed in the next 10 overs the Australian team successfully sent all the batsmen back to the pavilion giving away just 29 runs. The South African A innings ended at 171/10 in 48.4 overs.

Coulter-Nile led the bowling attack for the Australian A side with 3 wickets giving away 31 runs in his 10-over spell. Not far behind, Pattinson, Boyce and Agar took 2 wickets each and Abbott had 1 wicket, all the bowlers from Australia A contributed in folding the South Africa A innings.

The already confident Aussie side, that won the unofficial 2 match test series against a star-studded India A team came up to bat with no pressure whatsoever. Australia A captain Khawaja played a winning knock of 73 runs in 82 balls, with 9 boundaries and was supported well by Burns who played an equally contributing innings of 63 in 91 deliveries. South African side was unable to get an early wicket and kept on giving runs to the secured Australian team.

The first wicket for the defenders came when the chasers were already in a winning position. The Captain, Khawaja lost his wicket after giving his team a winning foundation at 142/1 in 26.2 overs. That was the only success the defenders saw, as Burns was well supported by Head who scored 27 not out leading his team to victory with a boundary and scored 14 runs in the 31st over. Australia A won with 19 overs and 9 wickets in hand.

Brief Scores:

South Africa A – 171/10 in 48.8 overs (Hendricks 43; Coulter-Nile- 3/31, Pattison- 2/41, Agar- 2/26, Boyce- 2/34)

Australia A – 175/1 in 31 overs (Khawaja 73, Burns 63; H Viljoen 1-54)

Man of the Match: Usman Khawaja