India A crush Afghanistan A by 7 wickets in tri-nation tourney

Pretoria (South Africa) July 29 (IANS) India A rode on three-wicket hauls from Vijay Shankar and Axar Patel and a half century from Karun Nair to beat Afghanistan A by seven wickets and register their first win in the tri-nation A tournament.

This was after the Manish Pandey-led side lost a low-scoring encounter against South Africa A in the series opener.

Putting Afghanistan to bat here on Friday the India colts bundled them for 149 in 40.5 overs with all-rounders Vijay (3/24) Axar (3/33) starring with the ball. Leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal also chipped in with two wickets for the Indians.

Punjab medium pacer Siddarth Kaul started the proceedings for India A removing Usman Ghani for a duck. Later Axar scalped two quick wickets one of them was of 25-year-old batsman Javed Ahmadi (25) to reduce them to 45/3 in 16 overs.

The 22-year-old Sharafuddin Ashraf (39) was the highest scorer for the Afghan side. His quick-fire knock laced with four boundaries and two hits over the fence came off 27 balls.

In reply Nair (57) and Pandey (41 not out) shared a 67-run third-wicket stand to lift India A after Shreyas Iyer (20) and Sanju Samson (10) were dismissed cheaply.

Delhi batsman Rishabh Pant scored a quickfire (17 not out) in 10 delieveries to help the side cross the line in 30.4 overs.

Brief Scores: Afghanistan A 149 (Sharafuddin Ashraf 39 Vijay Shankar 3/24 Axar Patel 3/33 Yuzvendra Chahal 2/42) lose to India A 150/3 (Karun Nair 57 Manish Pandey 41 not out) by 7 wickets.

--IANS
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