India A were 169 for the loss of nine wickets at stumps courtesy Hardik Pandya’s unbeaten 79-run knock after the Australia A pacers ran through the line-up on Day 1. While the all-rounder looked to stretch the innings with the lower-order, bad light halted play for the day and had to be called off a while later.
After Joe Burns elected to field, Kane Richardson dealt the first blow by claiming Faiz Fazal with just five runs on the board. Karun Nair followed him back to the dressing room; run out after contributing just the one run to the team total leaving the visitors on 11 for the loss of two wickets. Chadd Sayers then forced an edge from Akhil Herwadkar to the wicketkeeper to send the opener back for nine runs, while Manish Pandey was trapped lbw by Jackson Bird without a run added to the score line.
32 runs later, Sanju Samson was bowled by Hilton Cartwright. The captain, Naman Ojha too perished three runs later leaving the team tottering on 46 for six. Pandya then joined Jayant Yadav in an effort to revive the innings. The pair added 78 runs for the seventh wicket until Richardson brought back into the attack struck to end the stand.
Pandya rallied on to keep the innings afloat with the lower-order. His stand with Dhawal Kulkarni helped add 35 runs to the total before the lower-order bat was dismissed by Richardson while Bird accounted for Shardul Thakur 10 runs later. A ball later, at the end of the over, match was halted due to bad light and play couldn’t be resumed for the day.
Brief scores:
Day 1 – India A 1st inn 169/9 in 66 overs (H Pandya 79*, J Yadav 28, K Richardson 3/37, J Bird 3/53)
