South Africa A suffered a disappointing seven-wicket defeat to India A in their first of two unofficial Tests.
There were not many positives to take from SA A’s defeat to India A at the Greenfield International Stadium in Thiruvananthapuram.
The most disappointing factor for the visiting side was their batting return, as they scored a total of 350 runs over two innings.
In their first innings, they scrambled 164 runs together. Their top order was surprisingly undone by the medium pacers which forced pressure onto the lower order.
If it wasn’t for Dane Piedt (33) and Marco Jansen (44*), SA A was heading towards a much lower total than what they squeezed out. Three ducks –Aiden Markram, Pieter Malan and Heinrich Klaasen – put them down 22-5 after just 12.5 overs.
Their defence of this measly first-innings total was not as holistically pleasing as they would have liked.
Their wickets were relatively spread out which allowed the hosts to recover every time SA A found a breakthrough. They did relatively well in the end to bowl India A out for 303, with special mentions going to Lungi Ngidi (3-50), Dane Piedt (3-84) and the two youngsters playing in their first Test – Lutho Sipamla and Marco Jansen – who took two wickets each.
Having suffered the humiliation in their first innings, an improvement was expected in the second innings. There was a slight nudge of positivity through Zubayr Hamza (44), Heinrich Klaassen (48) and Wiaan Mulder (46) who contributed to two-thirds of the runs scored, but the visitors could only manage 186 in their second outing.
Bad weather, throughout the match, prolonged the inevitable defeat, with India A needing just 48 runs to win the first unofficial Test.
Ngidi (2- 22) and Piedt (1-26) bowled well again to reduce India A to 37-3 but the hosts comfortably trotted to a seven-wicket win in 9.4 overs on day four.
