The first four-day match took place at the Great Barrier Reef Arena in Mackay between October 31 and November 3 and pitted India A against Australia A. Despite Australia A’s seven-wicket victory in the first unofficial Test, Day 4’s high point was the Indian team’s alleged involvement in ball tampering. Umpire Shawn Craig discovered some strange scratches on the ball on the final day of the unofficial Test and replaced it with a new one.
At the beginning of Day 4, Australia A was chasing a modest target of 225 runs, while India A was defending about 80. Even though the umpires ignored the India A players’ doubts about the ball change, Ishan Kishan received a warning for doing so. In order to create a reverse swing,
Ian Healy, a former cricket player for Australia, has claimed that the Indian squad tampered with the ball.
When a team complains about a ball being switched, it means they were working on something. To put the Australians under strain, India A was preparing for a major reverse swing practice. Australia was aiming for a modest total, but it simply didn’t work out (for India A). The batters from Australia A were unaware of it. They simply put their best foot forward and did a fantastic job,” Healy told SENQ.
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The next match for India A is set to start on November 7 at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Melbourne. Notably, Abhimanyu Easwaran and Nitish Kumar Reddy are part of the 18-man Indian senior men’s team competing in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.
India A squad for Australia Tour
Ruturaj Gaikwad (c), Abhimanyu Easwaran (vc), Sai Sudharsan, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Devdutt Padikkal, Ricky Bhui, Baba Indrajith, Ishan Kishan (wk), Abishek Porel (wk), Mukesh Kumar, Khaleel Ahmed, Yash Dayal, Navdeep Saini, Manav Suthar, Tanush Kotian.