McSweeney Stays, Australia A Stay Ahead: 87 for 5 Becomes a 125-Run Win at Puducherry

A-team cricket is a strange, honest kind of cricket. There is no trophy anyone will remember in ten years, and no crowd that will sing about it. What there is, instead, is a scorecard that people who pick teams will read very carefully. On a Tuesday in Puducherry, one name on that scorecard was impossible to miss.

Australia A 274 all out in 48.2 overs. India A 149 all out in 31.4 overs. Australia A won by 125 runs, and Nathan McSweeney, who walked in with his side in trouble and was out only in the 48th over, made 123 from 135 balls and was Player of the Match. After two unofficial Tests on this ground — an Indian win by 162 runs and a draw — the one-day leg has begun with Australia A in front, 1-0 with two to play.

Australia A chose to bat and, for the first half hour, must have wondered why. Mitchell Owen hit a four and a six and was caught behind for 10 off Yash Thakur in the second over. Sam Konstas struck three fours in 14 from 12 balls and then was caught by Rajat Patidar off Thakur. Josh Philippe made 2 before Arshad Khan had him caught by Devdutt Padikkal. Thirty for 3 after 4.2 overs. The powerplay ended at 59 for 3, which tells you runs were coming, just not safely.

Liam Scott stayed with McSweeney for 47 runs before Nishant Sindhu removed him at 77, and Suryansh Shedge had Nikhil Chaudhary caught by Anukul Roy three overs later. At drinks Australia A were 87 for 5 in 16.4 overs, McSweeney was on 32, and a modest total looked the likeliest outcome.

What followed was the best passage of the day. McSweeney and Will Sutherland added 141 from 140 balls, and they did it in two different keys. McSweeney reached fifty from 72 balls, never in a hurry, and was 82 at the 34-over mark with Australia A on 173 for 5. Sutherland, on 34 at that point, then found the boundary in a different way: four sixes and only two fours in 77 from 68 balls, his fifty arriving from 54. McSweeney's hundred came from his 118th ball, with ten fours, and he went on to hit three more before Thakur had him caught behind at 269 for 9 in the 48th over. He reviewed; the decision stood.

Put plainly: McSweeney and Sutherland made 200 of Australia A's 274. The other nine batters made 62 between them, and there were 12 extras. That is not a criticism of the others so much as a measure of how much the innings depended on two men.

India A's chase began almost as Australia A's had, only quicker and without the rescue. Sai Sudharsan was caught behind off Mahli Beardman for 1 in the second over. Prabhsimran Singh hit four fours in 17 from 9 balls, then was caught by Chaudhary off Beardman, and three balls later Padikkal was gone for 0, also to Beardman. Twenty-four for 3 after 3.5 overs; 45 for 3 at the end of the powerplay.

Ruturaj Gaikwad battled to 15 from 30 balls before Spencer Johnson had him caught at 58 for 4 in the 13th over. Then came India A's best spell of the evening. Rajat Patidar and Nishant Sindhu added 47 from 61 balls, Patidar reaching 53 from 51 with five fours and a six, Sindhu striking three fours and a six in his 31. At 105 for 4 in the 23rd over, with Patidar set, 274 still looked a long way off but not an absurd one.

McSweeney, of all people, broke it, having Sindhu caught by Konstas. Shedge was caught by Riley Meredith off Beardman at 118, Mitchell Owen had Patidar caught by Konstas at 138, and from 149 for 7 India A lost their last three wickets without adding a run — one of them a run-out, Anukul Roy short of his ground. The innings ended in the 32nd over, with Yash Thakur not out without facing a ball.

It would be unfair to read too much into one evening. India A's bowlers had, after all, reduced Australia A to 87 for 5. Shedge's 4 for 40 and Thakur's 3 for 47 were fine returns, Prabhsimran held four catches behind the stumps, and Sindhu's seven overs went for 32. Where India A will look hardest is the middle overs, where Anukul Roy and Vipraj Nigam bowled 17 overs between them for 102 without a wicket while the sixth-wicket stand grew, and at a top three that made 18 runs between them.

We were not at the ground and will not pretend to describe the pitch. What the scorecard does say is that both sides lost three wickets inside the first five overs — Australia A were 30 for 3 at 4.2 overs, India A 24 for 3 at 3.5 — which suggests the new ball offered something early, or that both top orders were a little loose, or both. It also says that once that phase passed, batting was possible: Australia A's sixth-wicket pair scored at about a run a ball for 23 overs, and Patidar and Sindhu went at a similar clip for ten.

Beyond that, we would be guessing. The side that batted first won comfortably, but one match is not enough to say whether that was the toss, the conditions, or simply the 141.

Some hundreds are celebrations. This was more like a long, patient conversation with a difficult situation. McSweeney batted for 135 balls, through 30 for 3, through 87 for 5, through the stretch when a modest total seemed the likelier outcome, and he was still there with two overs to go. His fifty took 72 balls; his second fifty took 46. Thirteen fours and no sixes. He did not need to hit the ball in the air, because he had worked out that his job was not to win the game in an hour but to make sure there was still a game to win in the 40th over.

The best innings in a crisis often have that quality: they do not look like rescues while they are happening. They look like a man taking guard, over after over, until one day the scoreboard says 274 and you realise the house was rebuilt while you were watching the bricks. He also bowled three overs for 14 and took the wicket that broke India A's only meaningful partnership. A complete day's work.

Mahli Beardman deserves a line of his own. Six overs, 4 for 23, three of them in the first four overs — and in a match settled by 125 runs, those three wickets may have done as much to settle it as anything.

This match didn't have a CricIntel preview, so there is no prediction to grade. We will look to cover the remaining games of the series.

The 2nd unofficial ODI is on October 9 and the 3rd on October 11, both again in Puducherry. India A won the unofficial Test series 1-0, by 162 runs in the first match before a draw in the second, so this tour has swung gently from one side to the other. Australia A now need one more win to take the one-day series; India A need two.

For India A, the question is simple to ask and harder to answer: can the top order survive the first five overs? For Australia A, it is whether they can win again without needing someone to bat for 135 balls. A-team series are often described as auditions. On Tuesday, McSweeney gave the kind of performance auditions are meant to discover.