Chelmsford (UK), Jul 20 (PTI) India U-19 bowlers struck at regular intervals before skipper Thomas Rew and Ekansh Singh came to the home team’s rescue on day one of the second Youth Test here on Sunday.
Thanks to Rew and Ekansh’s 90-run partnership, England U-19 recovered from 80 for five to reach 177 for six in 44 overs.
Rew top-scored for England U-19 on the opening day after RS Ambrish and Aditya Rawat picked up two wickets apiece.
India U-19 skipper Ayush Mhatre won the toss and chose to field, and the decision was straightaway vindicated as Rawat and Henil Patel struck once each with the new ball to leave England at 4/2 in the second over.
Rawat, in fact, struck with the very first ball of the match, trapping Ben Dawkins in front of the wicket at the County Ground.
In the day’s second over, Patel got Adam Thomas out lbw to leave the England U-19 team in all sorts of trouble, even as one-down bat Aaryan Sawant got off the mark with a boundary.
After a delayed start due to rain, the match was interrupted when the heavens opened up again with England U-19 reaching 18 for two in 5.3 overs.
The interruption was lengthy, forcing the umpires to call for an early lunch.
When the proceedings began after the weather cleared up, Sawant and Rocky Flintoff tried to rebuild the innings.
However, Rawat cut short Flintoff’s stay in the middle when he had the batter caught by Vihaan Malhotra for a 26-ball 16 to leave the home team at 29 for three.
All-rounder RS Ambrish dismissed Sawant caught by Malhotra after the batter had reached 20 with the help of three boundaries.
Ben Mayes and Thomas Rew, who is performing the dual role of captaining and keeping in this match, then steadied the innings for a brief while before the former was dismissed by Ambrish for a 31 off 40 balls. His knock contained five hits to the fence.
Rew was then joined by Ekansh Singh (46 batting) in the middle, and the two forged a much-needed partnership of 90 runs for the sixth wicket to give England U-19’s innings a semblance of respectability before leg-spinner Naman Pushpak took the important wicket of the home team skipper.
Brief scores: England U-19: 177/6 in 44 overs (Thomas Rew 59; Aditya Rawat 2/42, RS Ambrish 2/39) vs India U-19. PTI AH AH ATK
This report is auto-generated from PTI news service. ThePrint holds no responsibility for its content.