Agar claims five as Australia A beat India A by three wickets

Chennai, Aug 11 - Left-arm spinner Ashton Agar claimed an impressive five-wicket haul and Chris Lynn's 63 steered Australia A to a comfortable three-wicket win over India A in a 50-over tri-series match at the M.A. Chidambaram Stadium here on Monday.

Choosing to bat, India A posted 258 runs on the board as Agar got a match-winning figures of 5-39. In reply, the visitors overhauled the target with easy, scoring 262/7 in 48.3 overs as Callum Ferguson and James Pattinson remained unbeaten on 45 and 0 respectively.

With this win, Australia A are on the top of the table with 14 points, winning all three matches played, while India are in the second spot with five points, winning one out of three. South Africa A are yet to register a win out of two matches played.

India began the day on a poor note as they lost skipper Unmukt Chand (5) in the seventh over. But opener Mayank Agarwal (61) and Manish Pandey (50) held on to take the score close to 100-run mark.

But the dismissals of Agarwal in the 19th over proved costly as incoming batsman Kedar Jadav also fell without troubling the scorers. India were reduced to 98/3 in the 19th over due to the two quick wickets.

But contributions from middle and lower order batsmen Karun Nair (32), Sanju Samson (23), Axar Patel (20) and Rishi Dhawan (26 not out) helped the team cross the 250-run mark.

Spinner Agar and right-arm medium pacer Gurinder Sandhu (2-66) were the pick of Australia A bowlers.

Chasing a total of 258, Australia openers Usman Khawaja (18) and Travis Head (45) got off to a flying start, scoring at a run rate of more than six in the first seven overs. 

But the ninth over brought back fortunes for India A as Rishi claimed the wicket of skipper Khawaja to bring the hosts back into the game.

His partner Head was also dismissed in space of six overs but, Lynn struck a fluent 63 of 61 balls to make the task easier for the visitors in the death overs.

But after the dismissal of Lynn in the 28th over, two quick wickets of Mathew Wade and Ashton Agar brought back the hosts into the game. Australia A were 178/6 in 34.3 overs.

However, Ferguson and Adam Zampa (54) had other plans. A brilliant 80-run partnership helped them get the close to the target at ease.

For India, spinner Karn Sharma (3-45) was the pick of the bowlers.

(IANS)