Vishakhapatnam: Thanks to an unbeaten knock of 178 runs by Manprit Juneja on the third day of the second unofficial Test at the ACA-VDCA Stadium in Vishakhapatnam, India A are now just 29 runs behind New Zealand’s first innings total of 437 here on Wednesday. Apart from Juneja, VA Jagadeesh and Abhishek Nayar also made a useful contribution of 91 and 57 runs to get India A back into this match.
Juneja played 336 balls and is looking good enough to stay a bit longer to score double century in his 12th first-class match. He knitted a steady and beautiful partnership of 197 runs with Jagadeesh for the third wicket which kept the Kiwi bowlers at bay and gave India a reason to cheer about. Their grit was good enough to leave visitors baffled on the day where pitch didn’t get as abrasive as it was expected it to be.
Jagadeesh made some subtle changes in his game and was playing with much more confidence against the fast bowlers which resulted in scoring good amount of runs against them.
The Kiwis were on the back-foot when Juneja and Jagadeesh started to build their innings and with their ability to keep wickets in hand made the visitors life much more difficult. Jagadeesh played the balls at its merit and at times he dispatched the bad balls to the boundary for fours.
With his unflustered approach he breezed into the nervous nineties, but at the stroke of the lunch Doug Bracewell scalped his wicket as he breached his defence to disturb the timber. It was probably a lapse in concentration of batsmen from Kerala which allowed the Kiwi seamer to give his side that much needed breakthrough.
Meanwhile, Juneja smashed his fifth century of his first-class career just before the lunch and was looking to carry on his magnificent run for as long as possible. After the lunch, it was some brutal hitting from Abhishek Nayar who thrashed the spin-twin of Todd Astle and Ish Sodhi through the off side and that accelerated the India's run-rate.
Juneja was finding it bit hard in the afternoon session but he kept the price on his wicket. Nayar reached his 21st half-century off just 47 balls that he faced. He smacked seven fours and a six to reach his fifty. but the new ball did the trick for Kiwis as Bracewell got rid of Nayar.
CM Gautam (1) followed the footsteps of Nayar when he gave away a simple catch to the wicket-keeper Luke Ronchi and India A was reduced to 5/304. Juneja got back to his water-tight defence and scored just 33 runs in this post-lunch session to negate the Kiwi bowlers who were bowling in the right channel to keep Indian batsmen on toes. He understood the gravity of the situation and started taking as much strike as possible.
Juneja added 37 and 33 runs with Jalaj Saxena (20) and Shrikant Wagh (19) for the sixth and seventh wicket respectively. But Dhawal Kulkarni lend him a helping hand to get India A to the final day of the second unofficial Test which is heading towards a draw.
Brief Scores-
India A - 7/408 (Manprit Juneja 178*, Abhishek Nayar 57, VA Jagadeesh 91, Doug Bracewell 3/75, Todd Astle 2/96)
