When Todd Murphy crowded Shaik Rasheed with four close catchers for the final over of the second day, it summed up how completely the second unofficial Test had turned. India A, who beat Australia A by 162 runs at this very Puducherry ground a week ago, are well behind in this one, trailing by 236, after two days of play.
The visitors posted a strong 358 in the first innings, a total built on Sam Harper’s excellent century. Australia’s wicket-keeper and No.7 bat had completed his century on the opening day, rescuing his side from a perilous 104 for 5. Today he pushed his score to 128 before he was dismissed somewhat controversially with the visitors deeming that India had called for their review of a caught-behind after the DRS timer had run down.
On the second morning, though, the visitors’ lower order kept the runs coming. Having resumed on 282, Australia added 76 more runs to their total. Jhye Richardson made 31 before Kotian bowled him at 330. Corey Rocchiccioli added another 16 from No. 10 before Anshul Kamboj brought an end to the innings by bagging his third wicket, that of Liam Hatcher.
India A’s batting, so dominant in the series opener, could not match the visitors’ efforts. Aayush Pandey fell in the first over bowled by Richardson, bringing in the experienced pair of Sai Sudharsan and Devdutt Padikkal together. In a possible early sneak peek into battles expected at next year’s Border Gavaskar Trophy, Todd Murphy bowled at the pair of left handers and gave away nothing. He found ample drift, drop and turn to clean up Sudharsan, who made 8 off 35 balls. Padikkal was a lot more fluent in his 31 before he was bowled Rocchiccioli with a ball that kept very low.
Todd Murphy picked up a second wicket, that of Yash Rathod, to finish the day with outstanding figures of 17-3-26-2 while Liam Scott dismissed the centurion from the first game, Kumar Kushagra, to put the visitors completely on top.
Brief scores: Australia A 358 (Sam Harper 128, Jason Sangha 46; Anshul Kamboj 3-34, Nachiket Bhute 3-44, Shams Mulani 3-92) lead India A 122/5 (Shaik Rasheed 36*; Todd Murphy 2-26) by 236 runs
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