Back home in Punjab, Gurkeerat Singh Mann has a reputation. Despite sharing a dressing room with Yuvraj Singh and Harbhajan Singh, he is known as the team's crisis man. Whenever there is an early collapse at Mohali, or in away games, they all look to Gurkeerat to bail the team out. In contrast, as he waited for his turn to bat in the India A shirt at Chepauk on Friday, there was no burden of expectations on the 25-year-old's shoulders. His team was chasing 227 and the pressure was on the top four — Mayank Agarwal, Unmukt Chand, Manish Pandey and Karun Nair — to do the bulk of the scoring. That didn't happen. So in walked Gurkeerat with the score reading 108 [related-post] As he walked towards the pitch, he left behind several tense faces and a restless coach, Rahul Dravid, constantly adjusting his cap. About a couple of hours later, the middle-order batsman would return as a hero. His 85-ball 87 helped India A outpace Australia A, cross the finish line and lift the Cup. The race that seemed lost at one stage was won with ease. India A won by 4 wickets with 39 balls to spare. A brisk start Actually, early in the chase, India A seemed to be in control. Openers Agarwal and Chand had scored 59 in eight overs. The Australians were struggling, they were losing their grip on the game. That's when they had a stroke of luck. Agarwal, who made 176 in the last match, was run out after a direct hit from point. Two overs later, Chand tried to clear the in-field by going over covers. He didn't succeed as he was caught by Joe Burns. Nair was caught behind without scoring while Pandey was trapped by left-arm spinner Ashton Agar. Kedar Jadhav continued to play his natural strokes despite the fall of wickets. His innings of 29 had five fours. However, he swept a low Adam Zampa full toss into the hands of Callum Ferguson on the fence. In the space of eight over, the game had changed. Australia A looked like running through the side. But Gurkeerat had other plans. He added 34 runs with Axar Patel before the left-handed all-rounder miscued a pull shot. Gurkeerat was taking no chances. He rotated the strike with Sanju Samson at the other end. His knock was risk free but it pulled India out of danger. Samson too stuck around, staying unbeaten on 24 off 42 balls. Earlier, it was a disciplined India A bowling that restricted the visitors to 226. Leg-spinner Karn Sharma took three wickets while Gurkeerat and Axar got two each. Brief scores: Australia A 226/9 in 50 overs (U Khawaja 76, J Burns 41; A Patel 2/25, G Singh 2/42, K Sharma 3/37) lost to India A 229/6 in 43.3 overs (M Agarwal 32, G Singh 87 n.o.; A Agar 2/39) by 4 wickets.
