Zaheer Khan, who was struggling to find his ‘good old’ rhythm since the comeback match at Mysore, seems to have found it on Saturday afternoon at Hubli, which helped India ‘A’ thrash their touring West Indies counterparts by an innings and 54 runs to square the series.
With the visitors reasonably well-placed at 234 for five, the match seemed destined for a draw, but Zaheer, in his first spell after lunch, put paid to their hopes. It took him only 17 deliveries to shatter the tourist’s dream of lifting the trophy. His devastating second spell read 2.5-0-10-3.
It all started with the fall of Narsingh Deonaraine. He was a single away from what would have been a fantastic century, but missed Zaheer’s inswinging delivery beat him all ends up and was bowled. His struggle to save his side from a certain defeat ended after 295 minutes wherein he faced 180 deliveries and stroked 13 boundaries.
In the meantime, Pujara brought in left arm spinner Bharghav Bhat from the city end. Though his introduction into attack after 170 minutes play raised many eyebrows, the bowler enjoyed immediate success. Nikita Miller, who was holding the fort for 73 minutes, lost his patience and propped up a lollypop to Dogra at mid-off.
At the same score they lost the wicket of Ashley Nurse, and eight runs later Miguel Cummins too departed, both of who were comprehensively beaten and bowled by Zaheer’s pace and movement. With wicket-keeper Jahmir Hamilton nursing an injury and unable to play, Windies slumped to an innings defeat, which had looked unlikely on a wicket that was expected to get slower and slower.
Until lunch, the match seemed like meandering to a draw. Zaheer, of whom quite a lot was expected this morning when he started the day’s proceedings from the Nripatunga Hills end, failed to live up to the expectations. From the other end though, Dhawal Kulkarni generated good bounce and pace off the wicket. But neither he nor Zaheer could seperate the overnight pair of Deonarine and Fudadin. It was finally left to Abhishek Nayar, who was brought in place of Kulkarni, to get the much-needed break. Fudadin, who had missed his half-century so narrowly in the first innings, failed to achieve that again. He nicked Nayar’s fifth delivery into the safe hands of Kaul behind the stumps.
Jonathan Carter, who has scored a century in an international match recently, too didn’t save his side. An express delivery from Nayar uprooted his stumps.
Brief scores: West Indies A 268 & 242 (Deonarine 99, Fudadin 49, Zaheer 4-49, Nayar 2-45) lost to India A 564-9 decl.