India vs West Indies ‘A’: Ishant Sharma, Umesh Yadav shine, Jasprit Bumrah goes wicketless against West Indies ‘A’

Following the impressive century by Cheteshwar Pujara, Ishant Sharma stepped up and showed his red ball credentials as he sliced through the West Indies top order with a fiery spell and picked up 3 wickets for his efforts. He was assisted by Umesh Yadav, who too looked in great rhythm and returned with 3 wickets. West Indies A were bundled out for 181 following which India extended their lead to 200 runs. Mayank Agarwal fell cheaply in the second innings, but Ajinkya Rahane and Hanuma Vihari saw off the day.

Kuldeep Yadav too chipped in with three wickets and all the three bowlers gave a great audition ahead of tjhe Test series. For West Indies A, opener Kavem Hodge turned out to be the lone survivor as he played a gritty 51-run knock in what was otherwise a disappointing batting performance by the hosts.

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Apart from Hodge and Jahmar Hamilton (33), none of the batters stayed at the wicket for long and were unable to stitch any significant partnerships. Ishant got the early breakthroughs for Virat Kohli, Umesh struck through the middle and Kuldeep claimed wickets towards the end. All-rounder Ravindra Jadeja, who has been nominated for the Arjuna Award, too made his mark with the run out of Jason Mohammed.

Six of the eight bowlers in the Indian squad rolled their arms over except ace off-spinner R. Ashwin and pacer Mohammed Shami. Jasprit Bumrah, Navdeep Saini and Jadeja went wicketless in their combined 29 overs but made sure they got the full match practice before the Men in Blue begin their World Test Championship from Thursday.

Brief Scores: India 297/5 declared & 84/1 (Hanuma Vihari 48*, Ajinkya Rahane 20*) lead West Indies A 181 (Kavem Hodge 51, Jahmar Hamilton 33; Umesh Yadav 3/19, Ishant Sharma 3/21) by 200 runs.

(With inputs from IANS)

First Published: Aug 19, 2019 09:30 IST