Youth Tests: India U19 completes clean sweep against Australia

CHENNAI: Debutant off-spinner Anmoljeet Singh and leg-spinner Mohamed Enaan picked 16 out of 20 Australian wickets as India U-19 comfortably won by an innings and 120 runs in the second Youth Test to complete a 2-0 series sweep here on Wednesday.

Australia colts lost as many as 17 wickets on the third day after commencing on its overnight score of 142 for 3 in reply to India’s huge first-innings total of 492.

The visitor was all out for 277 in its first essay with skipper Oliver Peake (117 off 199 balls) and keeper Alex Lee Young (66) adding 166 for the fourth wicket. After Lee Young was dismissed, the last six wickets fell for 69 runs.

Kerala boy Enaan (4/60 in 22.2 overs), who had once attended Saqlain Mushtaq’s clinic in Dubai and Ludhiana’s Anmoljeet (4/72 in 24 overs), who hero worships Harbhajan Singh, were the wreckers-in-chief.

In four-day cricket, the follow-on can be enforced if the team batting second is trailing by more than 150 runs. India U-19 had a lead of 215 runs.

After being enforced to follow-on, Anmoljeet, who had taken an astounding 65 wickets in the Vijay Merchant (U-16) Trophy in the 2023 season, came back to get 5 for 32 in 13.3 overs as Australia was skittled out for 95 in 31.3 overs.

Eight Aussie players failed to reach double digits and four of them didn’t bother to trouble the scorers.

While Anmoljeet had match figures of 9/104, Enaan wasn’t left far behind with 7/97 to show for his efforts.

Brief scores: India 492 bt Australia 277 & 95 in 31.3 overs (Anmoljeet Singh 5/32, Md. Enaan 3/37)