Rahul, Easwaran fail to leave mark as India A reduced to 73/5, after Harris makes 74

Melbourne: KL Rahul and Abhimanyu Easwaran failed to leave a mark yet again as India A were reduced to 73/5 at the end of day two’s play in the second four-day game against Australia A at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Friday.

Previously, Australia A managed to take a 62-run lead, thanks to opener Marcus Harris making 74 in their total of 223. For India A, fast-bowler Prasidh Krishna took a four-fer while pacer Mukesh Kumar picked three wickets.

In their second innings, India A were in trouble yet again as they went from 31/1 to 56/5. Wicketkeeper-batter Dhruv Jurel will have to stage a rescue act for India A, who led by 11 runs at the end of day two. Jurel is unbeaten on 19 while Nitish Kumar Reddy is nine not out.

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In the morning, resuming from unbeaten 26, Harris brought up his 47th first-class half-century and strengthen his case for opening the batting with Usman Khawaja in the upcoming Border-Gavaskar Trophy.

Harris’ 74 came off 138 balls and was laced with five boundaries. He was also lucky to have a reprieve at 48 when it looked like Tanush Kotian found the edge of Harris’ bat before being caught at first slip, but the on-field umpire not giving him left India A enraged. He was also helped by valuable contributions from Jimmy Peirson (30), Nathan McAndrew (26 not out) and Corey Rocchiccioli (35).

In India A’s second innings, Rahul and Easwaran added 25 runs for loss before the latter sliced to gully off McAndrew. From there, a collapse began for India A – B Sai Sudharsan edged to second slip off Beau Webster, while Ruturaj Gaikwad was trapped lbw by a nip-backer from McAndrew.

Rahul had an absolute brain-fade moment when he offered no shot and tried to defend with pads off Rocchiccioli, but the ball took a deflection of his pad and hit the stumps. His returns of 4 and 10 jeopardises the plan of India to possibly make him open in the first Test at Perth, with Rohit Sharma likely to miss out due to personal reasons.

It also doesn’t help India as Easwaran made 0 and 12 in the same game. Webster struck again in the day when he had Devdutt Padikkal nicking to first slip, before Jurel and Nitish hanged around till stumps arrived on what was another topsy-turvy day of red-ball cricket at the iconic MCG.

Brief Scores: India A 161 and 73/5 (Dhruv Jurel 19 not out, Beau Webster 2-14, Nathan McAndrew 2-22) lead Australia A 223 (Marcus Harris 74, Prasidh Krishna 4-50, Mukesh Kumar 3-41) by 11 runs