Vishakhapatnam: Skipper Abhishek Nayar and Vijay Zol slammed tons for India A on the final day of the first unofficial Test against New Zealand A which ended in a draw here on Friday.
Zol was absolutely dazzling on the tours of Australia and Sri Lanka and it looked like he just carried that brilliant form into his debut first-class match against the Kiwis. The match, though, ended in a draw, there were some positive points that Indian team drew from this match.
On Thursday, it was Jalaj Saxena who scalped six wickets before Luke Ronchi came up with blitzkrieg knock of 125 off 110 balls which was good enough to get his team back into the business, as they ended up with 310 in their first innings.
The left-hander, Vijay Zol, smacked 19 boundaries in his knock of 110 which came from 153 balls whereas Nayar smacked his 12th first-class century and remained unbeaten on 102. Nayar hit 14 fours and a six off 110 balls.
Zol not just display how attacking he can be, but also showed that he has that sound technique which can propel him into the big league. He was able to pick up his gaps against the furious duo of Mark Gillespie and Doug Bracewell. Apart from handling the pace bowlers, he was equally good in using his feet against the spin-twins of leg-break bowlers Ish Sodhi and Todd Astle.
The left-hander, who was batting at number four, had a partnership of 77 runs with opener Jiwanjot Singh who got out after scoring a patient 48 off 114 balls. Jiwanjot hit eight fours in his crucial knock.
Zol looked unruffled with the dismissal of the opener and went onto contribute in the fourth and fifth wicket partnership with Manpreet Juneja and Abhishek Nayar respectively.
He added 97 runs with Manpreet Juneja and 60 runs with Nayar. Juneja scored 43 off 67 balls that he faced before Astle claimed his wicket. Earlier, Astle dismissed Sarabjit Ladda and Unmukt Chand and was the most successful bowler for the visitors.
Zol was turning out to be a hard to crack for Kiwi bowlers but Carl Cachopa came into action to pick his only wicket of the match.
Nayar was still fighting out to get the innings back on track and found a great accompany in CM Gautham (16) who helped him in adding 56 runs for the seventh wicket, which also saw the skipper reaching half-century. Though, Jalaj Saxena couldn’t stay for too long and departed after scoring 10 runs.
Nayar was creeping towards his century as he found some decent support in Dhawal Kulkarni. The pitch was quite sluggish at the Port Trust Stadium, and the Kiwi spinners, Sodhi (2/100 in 23.5 overs) and Astle (3/106 in 18 overs) shared five wickets among them, whereas Bracewell (1/48) and Cachopa (1/56) has to satisfy with just one wicket each.
Brief Scores: New Zealand 310 in 77.3 overs.
India 388/7 in 93.5 overs (Vijay Zol 110, Abhishek Nayar 102 no, Jiwanjot Singh 48, Todd Astle 3/106, Ish Sodhi 2/100)
Match Drawn.
