A confident India A side look to win their third match on trot as they face the National Performance Squad (NPS) in the Quadrangular A Team Series. Scheduled to be played at Mackay, this will be the second match for the NPS and comes as a chance to take revenge over India A, who had won the last encounter between the two teams. The Indian side looks quite set with proper batsmen and bowlers by the side who are performing well, which is a positive for the team. India A are currently on top of the points table in the series. READ: Manish Pandey’s century leads India A to victory against South Africa A in Quadrangular ODI series
What makes India A a very strong contender is their long batting line-up. The batting goes down till No. 8, given the fact that the team consists of some quality all-rounders who have earlier turned things around for their sides. The batting order is balanced, starting from openers to the middle and lower-middle-order.
The top-order consists of talented young players like Karun Nair and Shreyas Iyer, who have impressed with their matured techniques at an early stage of their career. Nair failed to perform in the first match but did exceptionally well in the following match. His 72 in the match against South Africa A propelled India A to reach a total of 304.
India A, who were dependent upon skipper Manish Pandey’s unbeaten 100 in their first of the series, displayed a near-perfect batting in the second match, marking improvement. The entire line up contributed to take the score beyond the par of 250.
The team has a good blend of young and experienced players. With players like Manish Pandey, Hardik Pandya, Dhawal Kulkarni by the side who have played in the senior team in international matches, the squad is strong on experience quotient compared to the NPS squad. Manish Pandey has been the perfect captain so far, setting example with his individual performance as well.
However, a matter of concern for the team will be the performance of opener Faiz Fazal. The left-handed batsman, who has ample experience in the domestic circuit while has also toured Zimbabwe along with India team to add overseas experience to his career. But Fazal will have to up his game in order to cement his place in the team as an opener in the series. However, the skipper finds another option in Sanju Samson who has played as an opener in many matches and can be sent to open along with Karun Nair.
Among the bowlers that India A have so far gone with, Kulkarni has been the best with his 7 wickets from two matches. Jaydev Unadkat has also been effective while Yuzvendra Chahal has done well in challenging conditions for a spinner. India A has two all-rounders in Akshar Patel and Hardik Pandya, who have failed to do anything mentionable so far. With limited options, the two cannot be replaced and will have to do better to ensure India’s victory. India have also bolstered their pace attack by flying over Shardul Thakur, who was a part of the Indian national side on their recently-concluded tour of West Indies but did not get any chance to play. Thakur will be replacing the injured Barinder Sran, who is returning home from Australia.
Hardik Pandya has served India senior team as a batting all-rounder coming lower down the order to add the last minute runs. Pandya has majorly been used by MS Dhoni as a part-time option and with Kulkarni and Unadkat doing good, it gives him very less scope to appear as a bowler in this series. The only way he can prove his worth in the first eleven is by adding some crucial runs, which he has failed to do in the previous two matches. Looking at the way the rest of the long batting has done, the skipper can rather opt for another specialist bowler instead of playing him and Shardul will be the perfect choice.
For Akshar Patel, the main constraint will be the conditions which are known not to favour the spinners much. It will be interesting to see how the bowler makes the ball turn while contributing with the bat as well. Akshar is one of the most experienced in the squad if playing overseas and international cricket is concerned. So, apart from playing his own game, he has this job of helping his fellow bowlers with his experience to do better than how they are doing currently.
NPS’ batting performance in their previous game in the series remained unbalanced. The team lost their first wicket quickly, but came back with a competitive performance as Hilton Cartwright and Sam Heazlett built up a partnership of over 100 runs. But as the partnership was broken, the team failed to follow that performance up. It was the only big partnership of their innings, which came to an end with 318 runs on the board, handing India A an 86-run victory. The batting line-up needs to be consistent throughout.
NPS’ bowling has also been decent. Arjun Nair maintained a good economy but could only bag a solitary wicket while, on the other, Michael Nesser scalped a couple of wickets but went wrong with his economy, giving away too many runs. The bowlers need to maintain a good routine while going for an attacking mentality to save runs.
National Performance Squad: Matthew Short (c), Hilton Cartwright, Kyle Gardiner, David Grant, Sam Grimwade, Sam Harper, Sam Heazlett, Clint Hinchliffe, Josh Inglis, Caleb Jewell, David Moody, Arjun Nair, Ton O’Donnell, Matt Renshaw, Mitchell Swepson, Sean Abbott
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(Paulami Chakraborty, a singer, dancer, artist, and photographer, loves the madness of cricket and writes about the game. She can be followed on Twitter at @Polotwitts)
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