Courtesy: Google
Tom Haines, the England Lions opener, brought up his fifty in the second unofficial Test of the two-match series against India A at the County Ground in Northampton on day two of the contest. The left-handed batter, who is 26 years of age, took 80 balls to get past the milestone moment after hitting Tushar Deshpande for a four, backing up his hundred from the first unofficial Test last month, which had ended in a draw at the St Lawrence Ground in Canterbury.
Earlier, India A were bowled out for 348 runs in 89.3 overs in the first session on day two, which included a hundred from KL Rahul, and in the support cast, Dhruv Jurel scored a fifty, while the likes of Karun Nair and Nitish Kumar Reddy got decent runs under their belt as well. For England Lions, Chris Woakes ended up taking three wickets, the first three batters to fall for India A, all trapped in front of the stumps lbw before Josh Tongue and Josh Hill got into the act with a couple of wickets each.
In response, England Lions lost the wicket of Ben McKinney for 12 runs in 25 balls, getting nicked off through to wicketkeeper Dhruv Jurel on the bowling of Anshul Kamboj. As of this writing, England Lions have reached 123/1 in 27 overs with Tom Haines (54* off 83) and Emilio Gay (34* off 64), stitching together an impressive second wicket stand, currently unbeaten on 94 runs.
Below are the playing XI of England Lions and India A for second unofficial Test match:
England Lions: Tom Haines, Ben McKinney, Emilio Gay, Jordan Cox, James Rew (c)/(wk), Max Holden, George Hill, Chris Woakes, Farhan Ahmed, Josh Tongue, Eddie Jack
India A: Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Abhimanyu Easwaran (c), Dhruv Jurel (wk), Nitish Kumar Reddy, Shardul Thakur, Tanush Kotian, Anshul Kamboj, Tushar Deshpande, Khaleel Ahmed
