Kolkata: India A notched up their second win in the tri-nation ODI series after they beat Afghanistan by a massive 113-run margin in Pretoria on Tuesday.
Riding on a balanced 86* from skipper Manish Pandey, India A put on a commanding 322/5 in the first innings. Rishabh Pant also came into the act with a fluent 60 from 59 balls and Deepak Hooda (32) also contributed to the total but the fireworks at the end were provided by Krunal Pandya who blasted his way to 48 runs from just 27 balls which was laced with seven fours and one six.
The bowlers then backed up the effort as they restricted Afghanistan to 209/9 in their 50 overs handing India A it’s second win over them after they have beaten them earlier on July 28.
The Afghanistan batsmen despite getting starts failed to put up a fight. Javed Ahmadi (21), Younus Ahmadzai (28) and Rahmat Shah (28) could not capitalize on their starts and things looked pretty gloom for Afghanistan at one point of time as they were reduced to 98/5 at the 27 over mark.
Najibullah Zadran showed some sign of resistance among all the Afghanistan batsmen with 62 runs from 78 balls but that wasn’t enough to get even close to the Indian total.
The star with the ball from India was Mohammad Siraj who took three wickets conceding 49 runs. Siddharth Kaul (2/35) and Vijay Shankar (2/41) too chipped in with couple of wickets each as the Indians played clinical cricket to knock Afghanistan out of the tri-series.