India A earned their first victory in the ongoing England tour for the List A tri-series after comfortably beating the Windies A by 7 wickets (with 71 balls to spare) on Monday at Leicester. Pacer Deepak Chahar shined with the ball as he picked up five wickets and opener Mayank Agarwal shined with the bat by scoring a century.
After losing their opening game in this series against England Lions by 7 wickets (with 49 balls remaining) at Derby on last Friday, India A began the day freshly. Windies A skipper Jason Mohammed decided to bat first after winning the toss.
Caribbean opener Jermaine Blackwood was dismissed for a duck on the second ball of the match. They lost their wickets in regular intervals as they hadn’t big partnerships, except a 72-run partnership for the third wicket between Chandrapaul Hemraj and the skipper Jason Mohammed. While Hemraj and Mohammed scored 45 and 31 runs respectively, middle-order wicketkeeper-batsman Devon Thomas (64* off 83 balls) scored the highest runs in that innings. Windies A was all out for 221 in 49.1 overs.
Pacer Deepak Chahar was the best Indian bowler who bagged five wickets with the impressive bowling figure of 10-2-27-5. Also, Shardul Thakur (1/46), Khaleel Ahmed (1/48), Vijay Shankar (1/21) and Krunal Pandya (1/47) all picked up one wicket each.
In reply, India A chased down that target comfortably in 38.1 overs after losing just three wickets. Opener Mayank Agarwal and no.3 batsman Shubman Gill did the most of the work during that successful chasing. They put an impressive 148-run partnership for the second wicket while Agarwal was dismissed on 112 runs off 102 balls (11 fours and 2 sixes) and Gill stretched his innings to the victory with an unbeaten 58-run knock off 92 balls (5 fours).
Among the Windies A bowlers, Dominic Drakes (2/37) picked up two wickets while Chemar Holder (1/48) claimed one wicket.
Brief Scores: Windies A – 221 in 49.1 overs (Devon Thomas 64*, Chandrapaul Hemraj 45; Deepak Chahar 5/27)
India A – 222/3 in 38.1 overs (Mayank Agarwal 112, Shubman Gill 58*; Dominic Drakes 2/37)
Result – India A won by 7 wickets
