Musheer Khan and Navdeep Saini again hogged the headlines, as the duo shared a splendid 205-run eighth wicket stand in India B’s opening game of the Duleep Trophy against India A. However, India A ended Day 2 on a strong note at 134/2, still in arrears by 187.
The day certainly belonged to the pair of Musheer and Saini. The former was more aggressive on the second day, bringing out the cut and pull against the pace duo of Khaheel Ahmed and Avesh Khan. Musheer tends to hang back and he is quite strong through the square of the wicket on the off-side. As soon as Kuldeep Yadav was brought into the attack, Musheer once more cracked a range of shots, including the loft and sweep.
In fact, right through his innings, Musheer was picking the length early while facing Kuldeep, which in turn gave him that bit of extra time to play his shots. Another feature of his batting was converting ones into twos and farming the strike with Navdeep, the No. 9 batter. Ultimately, in the 109th over, he was dismissed by a Kuldeep googly. As he walked back to the pavilion, Musheer rightly got a standing ovation.
It is true that Musheer had his share of plays and misses early on in his innings. He also got a couple of on-field decisions overturned via the DRS. The youngster, though, was able to wade through those tricky phases. Saini, his batting partner, also deserves praise for playing a resolute innings. When needed, he also put on a decent exhibition of stroke-play, crunching eight boundaries and a six. He was the last man dismissed, falling for 56.
Meanwhile, Akash Deep was the best bowler on show for India A, bagging a four-for. Although it has to be said that he was down on pace, especially on Day 2. It also felt as if India A players were going through the motions during the morning session. At one point, India A had 12 players on the field, which somewhat indicated the lack of alertness.
Mayank Agarwal, Shubman Gill, Riyan Parag and KL Rahul then all got starts. Both Agarwal and Gill would feel they missed out on big scores. Gill was done in by a nip-backer from Saini, with the batter offering no shot. Agarwal followed him, with Rishabh Pant taking a fine catch down the leg-side. Until then, Agarwal had looked to be in very good touch.
Riyan and Rahul steered India A to stumps. The former in particular essayed some delightful drives. On the other hand, Rahul was more circumspect. He also had a reprieve as he was dropped off Mukesh Kumar. For India B, Saini took both the wickets to fall.
Brief scores: India B 321 (Musheer Khan 181, Navdeep Saini 56; Akash Deep 4/60, Khaleel Ahmed 2/54) lead India A 134/2 (Mayank Agarwal 36; Navdeep Saini 2/36) by 187 runs