da dobrowin： A splendid 104 by Sadagopan Ramesh, his 195-run second wicket standwith VVS Laxman (94) and fine spin bowling by Colin Miller who baggedsix wickets for 90 runs highlighted an eventful second day’s play inthe three day match between India A and the
Waleed Hussain18-Feb-2001A splendid 104 by Sadagopan Ramesh, his 195-run second wicket standwith VVS Laxman (94) and fine spin bowling by Colin Miller who baggedsix wickets for 90 runs highlighted an eventful second day’s play inthe three day match between India A and the touring Australian cricketteam at the Vidarbha Cricket Association ground in Nagpur on Sunday.India A who were 71 for one at stumps on the opening day in reply tothe Australians’ first innings total of 291 were all out for 368. Theinnings ended 78 minutes after the tea interval and in the remainingtime, the Australians scored 39 for one off eight overs.The morning belonged to the home team and Ramesh and Laxman were allsmiles as they came in to lunch on 203 for one off 49 overs. At theinterval, Ramesh was on 99 and Laxman on 68. The session produced 132runs off 31 overs with no damage in the wickets department.Ramesh carried on from where he left off last evening. He reached hishalf-century in the sixth over of the morning with a pull shot offDamien Fleming. He kept a steady flow of runs from one end as Laxmansettled down at the other. Ramesh was the most aggressive in thesession but just missed getting his hundred by the interval.Laxman was given his first reprieve by Mathew Hayden in the gully whenhe chased an outswinger from Fleming in the second over of themorning. He was lucky again at 10 when a bouncer from Gillespie wentoff Laxman’s gloves and fell inches short off Langer at gully.Laxman went on to get his half-century off 111 balls laced with nineboundaries. Ramesh was the dominant partner but when he reached thenineties, he seemed nervous. Laxman then took over centre stage andplayed some aggressive shots to ease off the pressure on Ramesh.After lunch, however, Miller turned the tide in favour of theAustralians with a five wicket haul. By the interval, he had baggedfive for 76 from 27 overs to reduce India A to 299 for eight off 79overs. The session saw a remarkable change in the proceedings as 96runs were scored off 30 overs but at the cost of seven wickets.Ramesh duly reached his century immediately after lunch and Laxmancontinued to blaze away. But then Ramesh touched a wide delivery fromGillespie and edged the ball to Gilchrist. Ramesh’s 101 came off 158balls with a score of boundaries. He and Laxman added 195 runs for thesecond wicket off 43.4 overs.Soon after, Laxman missed out on his century by six runs when he drovethe ball in the air, to Steve Waugh in the covers. He played 157 ballswith 17 hits to the fence.The scoreboard read 231 when the second wicket fell. One run later,Dinesh Mongia was back in the pavilion. The score did not move anyfurther after that as three more wickets fell on the same score of232. Dinesh Mongia, Laxman and Hemang Badani all fell in quicksuccession.Balaji Rao showed signs of a fightback but could not counter the spinof Miller. He holed out to Fleming on the boundary trying to clear thefence, for six runs off 35 balls. Harbhajan Singh soon followed afterscoring 12 runs off eight balls, with three hits to the fence. RahulSanghvi had no clue to the bowling and was trapped on the back foot byMiller for one run.The last session of the day produced a fighting knock from the Indianstumper Nayan Mongia who played a brave innings to ensure that theIndia A team got the lead. He remained unbeaten on 71 off 102 ballswith eight hits to the fence.Australia took the second new ball after 81 overs. Mongia went afterDamien Fleming in the 86th over, hitting him for 18 runs. He was wellsupported by Debasish Mohanty and the two added 75 runs for the ninthwicket off 21.3 overs. Mohanty played a patient 73-ball knock and hitthree boundaries and one six for his 28 runs.The Australian openers batted cautiously in the second innings. Eventhe usually explosive Slater tried to leave deliveries outside theoffstump. He slashed at an outswinger from Ashish Nehra but was letoff at Gully by SS Das. The other opener Mathew Hayden too had hisshare of good fortune when a cut off Mohanty fell inches away from theoutstretched hands of Rahul Sanghvi at gully.First change bowler Harbhajan Singh spelt doom for Slater who failedto time a pull shot, only to find Balaji Rao at midwicket. Slaterscored 11 runs from 25 balls. Matthew Hayden and Justin Langer ensuredthat no further damage was done to the innings before close of play.