India A and Ian Healy. (Source – Getty Images)
India A played Australia A in the first four-day game at the Great Barrier Reef Arena in Mackay from October 31 to November 3. Though Australia A won the first unofficial Test by seven wickets, the highlight of Day 4 was the Indian team accused of allegedly involving in ball tampering. On the last day of the unofficial Test, umpire Shawn Craig changed the ball and provided a new ball after finding some unnatural scratches on the ball.
Australia A was chasing a small target of 225 runs and India A was defending around 80 runs at the start of Day 4. Though umpires did not pay any heed to India A players questioning the ball change Ishan Kishan was provided a warning for questioning the same. However, former Australia cricketer, Ian Healy has alleged that the Indian team did tampered with the ball, to generate a reverse swing.
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“When you see a team complain about a ball being changed, they were up to something. India A was gearing up for a big reverse swing session in order to get the Australians under pressure. Australia was chasing a small total and it just didn’t happen (for India A). The Australia A batters were oblivious to it. They just put their head down and performed really well,” Healy told SENQ.
India A will play their next game at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Melbourne, scheduled to commence on November 7. It is worth noting that Abhimanyu Easwaran and Nitish Kumar Reddy are also included in the India senior men’s 18-member squad for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.
India A squad for Australia Tour
Ruturaj Gaikwad (c), Abhimanyu Easwaran (vc), Sai Sudharsan, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Devdutt Padikkal, Ricky Bhui, Baba Indrajith, Ishan Kishan (wk), Abishek Porel (wk), Mukesh Kumar, Khaleel Ahmed, Yash Dayal, Navdeep Saini, Manav Suthar, Tanush Kotian.