Jasprit Bumrah and Ravindra Jadeja’s hopes of getting some serious game time went down the drain as the third unofficial Test between India A and New Zealand A ended in a draw after the fourth and final day of the match was washed out on Tuesday.
The third day of the match was also washed out on Monday. The overall honours were shared by both teams as all three games ended in draws.
India A had scored 464 for 5, riding on Yashasvi Jaiswal’s second hundred of the series and half-centuries from Sai Sudharsan, Dhruv Jurel, Tilak Verma and Washington Sundar.
New Zealand A had ended the second day’s play at 36/2.
The third game was crucial from an Indian perspective as Bumrah and Jadeja were expected to get some game time after coming back from a break.
Bumrah had last played on October 3 during the Asian Games final against Pakistan in Japan’s Aichi-Nagoya.
He was rested from the white ball leg of the New Zealand tour to keep him fresh for the two-match series starting on November 19 in Wellington.
During the match, Bumrah got to bowl six overs in which he gave away 11 runs. He would have ideally liked to bowl multiple spells and warm up nicely for the Test but weather gods made it impossible.
Jadeja, who normally plays as a front-line batter on foreign soil, got a chance to play 71 deliveries for his 25 and was around the crease for an hour and 20 minutes.
But Jadeja didn’t get a chance to bowl as India A got to bowl only 14 overs.
Bumrah, Jadeja along with Jaiswal, Devdutt Padikkal, Sai Sudharsan, Washington Sundar and Akash Deep will now leave for Wellington where the Indian senior team is eyeing six productive training sessions provided there is no rain.
As far as the India A series is concerned, the two big positives will certainly be Jaiswal hitting back-to-back hundreds and Padikkal looking good, having scored 199 in the opening unofficial Test which sealed his No. 3 spot ahead of Sudharsan, who also got a few fifties.
Akash Deep too is getting back into the groove after a long injury lay-off and it will be interesting to see if head coach Gautam Gambhir and Test captain Shubman Gill opt for a fourth specialist pacer apart from Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj and Prasidh Krishna.
Akash Deep happens to be a handy batter too.
-PTI
