Manish Pandey scored brilliant 86 runs, which included nine boundaries and a six. (Source: File)
India A registered their second win of the tournament after thrashing Afghanistan A by a 114-run margin in the fourth one-day match of the Triangular series at Pretoria on Tuesday. After winning the toss, Afghanistan A put India A to bat but it didn’t go according to the plan for them. The men in blue lost their first wicket early at the score of 38 runs as Karun Nair failed to provide a formidable start.
Shreyas Iyer and Rishabh Pant then combined well and continued to score at a decent rate and hammered 70 runs together for the second wicket before Iyer was dismissed for 44 runs by Sharafuddin Ashraf. Rishabh Pant continued to smash boundaries but couldn’t convert his attacking half century into a century as he got out for 60.
After the set pair was back in the hut, Manish Pandey led from the hunt and scored a strokeful 86 which included nine boundaries and a six. Pandey helped the other batsmen to play without fear and also stitched a crucial 78-run fourth wicket partnership with Deepak Hooda. Towards the end, Krunal Pandya also chipped in with Pandey as the left-hander scored a 27-ball 48, helping India A to finish at 322 for the loss of five wickets in their 50 overs. Sharafuddin Ashraf was the pick of the bowlers for Afghanistan A with two wickets for 48 runs in his 10-over spell.
Chasing a massive total of 323, Afghanistan A batsmen never seemed to match the required run-rate as they kept on losing wickets at regular intervals. Afghanistan A lost half of their side below 100 runs and finally managed to get 209 runs on the board with one wicket left. Najibullah Zadran scored the highest 62 for his team. For Afghanistan A, Zadran and captain Shafiquallah recorded the highest partnership of 57 runs, which was for the sixth wicket.
For India A, Mohammed Siraj bowled exceptionally well, picking up three wickets for 49 runs in his 10 overs and another impressive performance was given by Siddharth Kaul who gave away just 35 runs in his nine overs, grabbing two wickets.
