India trounced Australia by seven wickets in the U-19 International Series at the Marrara Oval in Darwin on Monday.
According to the media, Australia occupies the second position on the Series points table, in advance of third-placed New Zealand due to a better run rate. Surely, New Zealand will get an opportunity to surpass Australia when they will play against India at Marrara Oval in the last round match of the Series on Wednesday.
The Aussies started steadily as Matthew Short and Tom Leaver struck 34 and 23 respectively. Bowling of India was led by Aamir Gani who picked 3/25 and bowled a tough line. Actually, the lower-order cameos Jake Doran scored 41 off 52 balls and Cam Valente scored 28 from 25 balls boosted the total. It cannot be ignored that Australia's previous struggle to get the ball past the infield restricted their ability to place a defendable target.
On the other side, India won without much commotion. They beat Australia by seven wickets and with four overs still remaining. Akhil Herwadkar scored 60 and captain Vijay Zol scored 64 to destroy the hosts. Notably, Matt Fotia (2/34) and Short (1/10) were the wicket-takers for Australia.
Australian coach Stuart Law remarked that they understand that they are not quite where they want to be. But it doesn't just happen overnight. They have to keep working really hard. They are a lot better than the performance they are actually producing, which is disappointing; not just for him, but for the players who understand they have been underachieving in these games. He added that in these games, one has got to be able to score runs at a fair pace and India have got some good batters, also a few boys have played in the IPL too and have that experience. They have got some fantastic players too and as they start understanding and believing it, they would begin scoring more runs.
The U-19 International Series Final is scheduled to take place at Marrara Oval on 12th July, Friday. In the other match to be played, the third-placed team will face local side NT Strike at Gardens Oval on Friday.
