AUS-A Women won by 45 runs
Raghvi Bist and Uma Chetry had given India A hope in their chase but the target proved out of reach
Charli Knott captained Australia A to a hard-fought victory • Getty Images
Australia A 212 (Voll 71, Mani 5-58) and 260 (Darke 105*, de Broughe 58, Mani 6-92) beat India A 184 (Sehrawat 40, Peterson 5-16) and 243 (Chetry 47, Knott 3-34, Flintoff 3-39) by 45 runs
Two wickets in four balls from Tess Flintoff made the difference on the final day between Australia A and India A after the visitors had threatened to close down their target.
Raghvi Bist and Uma Chetry built a seventh-wicket stand of 79, the latter playing positively on the final morning, but just as the target of 289 was starting to loom into view, Flintoff changed the game. First she had Chetry splicing a pull into the leg side and then got one through Bist to remove India A’s last two main batting options.
Three overs later Australia A had their ninth when Mannat Kashyap pulled Maitlan Brown to mid-on which all but assured the home side of victory. However, a last-wicket stand of 24 made them work to wrap things up and it was captain Charlie Knott who claimed the final wicket when Sayali Satghare chipped a return catch.
“It was a bit nerve-racking at the start. They put on 60 runs or so without a wicket lost,” Knott said. “But we knew once we got one wicket we would get the rest, so we just had to stick in there. They were going pretty aggressive, so we knew something would come.
“Day one we felt a little bit nervous, not putting in a great performance with the bat, but the bowling group has managed to do an awesome job and also the second innings with the bat, our lower order really fought to get us to a defendable total.”
Key performances for Australia A came from Georgia Voll’s opening-day 71 then Kate Peterson’s five-wicket haul earned a narrow lead. Maddy Darke scored an outstanding second-innings century while legspinner Grace Parsons put in a crucial all-round display with 70 runs across two innings at No. 10 and two wickets in India’s chase.
“We only won by 40-something runs in the end, so without those [runs] we wouldn’t have got over the line,” Knott said.
The highly competitive four-day game concluded India A’s tour, which included three formats and they played better the longer the trip went on. Australia A won the T20s 3-0 and the one-dayers 2-1.
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