Kedar Jadhav and Shreyas Iyer shine as India A remain on top of the table

India A extended the lead on top of the points table of the Quadrangular A-Team One-Day Series in Australia, as they beat National Performance Squad by 6 wickets with 70 balls remaining.

After winning the toss, NPS was put into bat first by the Indian A skipper Manish Pandey and the call went well as pacer Varun Aaron dismissed opener Caleb Jewell for a golden duck in the second over of the match.

However, Sam Harper along with Matt Renshaw rescued the side after the early loss, as the duo added 76 runs for the second wicket. Jayant Yadav was the one who broke the stand as he trapped Renshaw (31) leg-before-wicket in the 17th over.

A score in excess of 250 was well on the cards, but all the hopes perished as their batting line-up fell like a deck of cards, from 128 for 2 to 207 for 8 in their 50 overs. Shreyas Iyer claimed the key wicket of the well settled Harper, who scored 72 runs from 80 deliveries with 6 boundaries.

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Aaron was expensive on the day, but picked 3 crucial wickets, whereas Hardik Pandya, left-arm spinner Axar Patel, Shreyas Iyer and Kuldeep Yadav bagged one wicket each.

A target of 208 was never going to challenge the strong Indian batting line-up, but the left-arm pacer Tom O’Donnell made things difficult for the Indians. India A lost Mandeep Singh early in the innings for 4. After adding 22 more runs to the total, the other opener Karun Nair was on his way back to the pavilion as O’Donnell was on song and was mid-way through a beautiful spell.

Indian skipper Manish Pandey was the next to go after his 7-ball 10, as the scoreboard read 41 for 3. Mumbai run machine Shreyas Iyer played cautiously and ensured India got out of trouble as he got an aggressive partner at the other end in the form of Kedar Jadhav.

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The duo added over 100 runs for the 4th wicket, before Iyer (62) was dismissed by O’Donnell in his second spell and it was his 4th wicket of the match. Jadhav 93* and Pandya 14* took India home without any further damage to seal the match by 6 wickets.

Brief Scores:

National Performance Squad – 207/8 from 50 overs (Sam Harper 72, Clint Hinchliffe 43; Varun Aaron 3/58)

India A – 208/4 from 38.2 overs (Kedar Jadhav 93*, Shreyas Iyer 62; Tom O’Donnell 4/28)

India A won by 6 wickets with 70 balls remaining

Player of the match – Kedar Jadhav

Schedule for remainder of the series: