England Lions vs India A, Review: Mayank Agarwal scores another hundred in a winning cause

Agarwal scored his second consecutive hundred as India A beat the hosts by a huge margin.

View : 1.9K

2 Min Read

Mayank Agarwal
info
Mayank Agarwal of India raises his bat. (Photo by Nathan Stirk/Getty Images)

No matter what format or stage of cricket is being played the Indian team always enters the contest as a favourite to win. They’ve done considerably well in List A cricket and that’s why India A team was considered to have a great chance to triumph in the ongoing One-Day Tri-series in England. However, they fell on their face in the opening encounter against the hosts. That served them as a wakeup call and Shreyas Iyer’s boys have made amends since.

In the second match, India faced Windies A, chasing a modest target, they won the match by 7 wickets and were back to the winning ways. Today, the Men in Blue were once again up against the English Lions and they paid back sweet revenge.  Iyer won the toss this time at the Grace Road, Leicester and decided to bat first.

India opened with Mayank Agarwal who was coming into this game high on confidence having struck a century against Windies and Shubman Gill who scored an unbeaten fifty. The duo gave the team an amazing start. They toyed with the bowling and were dominant in their approach. The 165-run opening partnership set India up for a huge total. Mayank made it two in two and got to his 11th hundred in List A cricket. Gill also scored a 72 but couldn’t convert it into a big knock yet again.

Mayank’s redemption

A lot was at stake for Agarwal coming into the series. He had a fantastic first-class season in the Ranji Trophy for Karnataka but couldn’t make it count representing Kings XI Punjab in IPL 2018. Had he floundered here, all the vibe around his name would’ve died down but he has capitalized on this faith of the national selectors to pick him in the India A side.

Gill was the first to be dismissed and Hanuman Vihari who walked in at No.3 batted well and ensured the start was converted into a big team total. Mayank got out on 112 from 104 balls that he scored with the help of 10 boundaries and four sixes. Vihari lost a few partners in quick succession but played his own game and kept the team in the hunt. After Agarwal’s dismissal, Rishabh Pant failed to score more than 7 runs, skipper Iyer continued to have a below par series with the bat and was out for 6.

Vihari finally found a partner in all-rounder Deepak Hooda who scored a quick 33 from 27 balls. The 24-year-old from Andra finally got out on the penultimate ball of the innings run out on 69 from 63 balls. Hooda also got out on the last ball as the Indian innings folded for 309/6.

The English chase

It was a stiff target even for the England team and despite the fact that it was a rather easy wicket to bat on. Like India, the hosts wanted a flying start to set the chase up but that was not to be as Shardul Thakur had some other plans. The pacer got rid of Nick Gubbins in the fourth over when they had just 26 runs on the board and in his next sent Tom Kohler-Cadmore back for a single digit score. His partner Prasidh Krishna also joined the act in the 8th over and cleaned up England’s No.3 Sam Hain.

Hereon, it was an uphill task for the home team unless someone put up an Agarwal like knock and at even better pace. But that was not to be, all the batters in the middle order got starts but returned back with 20s and 30s. Krunal Pandya, Krishnappa Gowtham, Deepak Hooda and Khaleel Ahmed the entire Indian bowling attack got in and picked their share of wickets to make sure the game was strongly their grips. Towards the end, Shardul and Khaleel cleaned up the tail cheaply and England Lions were bowled out for 207 in 41.3 overs and India A won the game by a huge 102-run margin.

Brief Scores:

India A – 309/6 in 50 overs (M Agarwal 112, Shubman Gill 72; MD Fisher 2/58, EG Barnard 2/51)

England Lions – 207/10 in 41.3 overs (LA Dawson 38, BT Foakes 32; Shardul Thakur 3/53, KK Ahmed 2/30)

India won by 102 runs.

For all the latest cricket news and other updates follow CricTracker.

Get every cricket updates! Follow Us:

googletelegraminstagramwhatsappyoutubethreadstwitter

Download Our App

For a better experience: Download the CricTracker app from the IOS and Google Play Store