Shardul Thakur and Nitish Kumar Reddy preventing for the lone seamer all-rounder’s slot within the Take a look at crew had been manner under par towards a dogged England Lions batting unit that ended the third day’s play at 527 for seven with the opening four-day sport towards India A meandering in direction of a tame draw.
Seamer Mukesh Kumar’s (3/75 in 21 overs) morning spell with the previous Dukes was the one spotlight in an in any other case mediocre bowling effort from India right here on Sunday.
It lacked vital penetration required to make inroads on a docile observe and Abhimanyu Easwaran’s captaincy, similar to his batting, left lots to be desired.
Between Shardul (1/90 in 21 overs) and Reddy (0/57 in 11 overs), they bowled 32 overs with the previous getting an prolonged spell however not for as soon as did it appear that they had been ready to hassle a stodgy Tom Haines (171) or a gutsy Dan Mousley (113), who acquired his maiden First-Class hundred.
Whereas Reddy took two spells to seek out his proper size, Shardul was insipid at greatest. They’re in a straight battle for the No.7 slot within the Indian Take a look at eleven for the Leeds sport however they bowled at a median pace that hovered round 75 miles per hour (120 kmph) and 78mph (125 kmph).
Shardul did get a wicket however credit score for that might go to Sarfaraz Khan, who was positioned at barely huge of first slip and dived full stretch to his left to take a one-handed stunner off an over-pitched supply to disclaim Haines a sure-shot double ton.
Replying to India A’s mammoth first innings rating of 557, England A rode on fantastic batting efforts from in a single day centurion Haines’ and Max Holden (101), who reached three figures in the course of the opening session.
Aside from the 2 southpaws, there was a 3rd one in Mousley, who additionally dealt with the Indian assault with ease. The Haines-Holden 181-run stand for the third wicket was the cornerstone of England Lions innings. Haines-Mousley stand additionally yielded 93 runs whereas Mousley and Zaman Akhter (38 batting) added one other 108 runs for the seventh wicket.
Mukesh did pitch the ball in proper areas and acquired sufficient bounce and a little bit of seam motion to dismiss Holden, James Rew (8) and Rehan Ahmed (3) in fast succession in the course of the pre-lunch session.
He was the one bowler, who not less than acquired some buy whereas Harshit Rana (0/84 in 22 overs) discovered his laborious lengths tough when it got here to creating an impression. Anshul Kamboj (1/69 in 22 overs) was good whereas bowling restrictive strains as Lions scored 290 runs in an entire day’s play.