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India A soared to the top of the points table, as the first round of the 2006 EurAsia Cricket Series ended here at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium on Friday night. India beat arch-rivals Pakistan A rather comfortably in the end by a 34 runs margin.

After India A had compiled a score of 269 for six in their allotted fifty overs having won the toss in the day/night fixture, the Pakistanis were somewhat slow in their run chase. They continued losing wickets also and couldn’t really built up an adequate enough tempo, being dismissed for 235 runs in 49.1 overs.

Left-handed opener Taufeeq Umar consumed 84 balls while scoring 51 runs with five fours. Man of the Match in the previous encounter against Netherlands A, Bazid Khan, scored 87 off 107 balls with four fours and two sixes. His fourth-wicket stand with Taufeeq was worth 72 runs but the others didn’t accomplish much.

Right-arm fast-medium bowler Vikram Rajvir Singh captured three wickets for 33 runs in his 10 overs to be declared Man of the Match. Left-arm paceman Rudra Pratap Singh, medium-fast Reetinder Sodhi and slow left-armer Ravindra Jadeja chipped in with two wickets apiece.

For the second round, Pakistan A have now joined Sri Lanka A alongside Netherlands A in the Group D matches. India A, Ireland A and hosts United Arab Emirates (UAE) are in Group C.

Pakistan play against The Netherlands here on Monday (May 1) and then meet Sri Lanka A two days later. India A are playing against UAE on Sunday (today) and against Ireland A on Tuesday.

The final of the EurAsia Cricket Series will be played under lights here at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium on May 5 (Friday), between the two teams that finish on top of the points table.

EurAsia Cricket Series Points Table

Teams P W L Pts NRR

India A 2 2 - 11 +2.360

Sri Lanka A 2 2 - 11 +0.889

UAE 2 1 1 7 +1.161

Pakistan A 2 1 1 7 +0.890

Ireland A 2 - 2 0 -2.057

Netherlands A 2 - 2 0 -3.250

Scoreboard

India A won toss

India A

A R Uthappa lbw b Mansoor 52

S Dhawan st Zulqarnain b Hafeez 52

*Y Venugopal Rao c Hasan b Hafeez 45

Rohit Sharma c Irshad b Umar 62

†K K D Karthik c Yasir Hameed b Mansoor 33

R S Sodhi not out 3

S Badrinath c Yasir Arafat b Umar 1

R S Jadeja not out 5

Extras (b2, lb1, w9, nb4) 16

Total (6 wkts, 50 overs) 269

Did not bat: Piyush Chawla, R P Singh, V R Singh

Fall: 1-100, 2-121, 3-186, 4-254, 5-259, 6-263

Bowling: Umar Gul 10-1-51-2 (2w); Mohammad Irshad 4-0-27-0 (2nb); Yasir Arafat 10-0-57-0; Mohammad Hafeez 10-0-53-2 (2w); Mansoor Amjad 10-0-49-2 (1nb, 1w); Taufeeq Umar 6-0-29-0 (4w)

Pakistan A

Yasir Hameed lbw b V R Singh 1

Taufeeq Umar b Jadeja 51

Mohammad Hafeez b R P Singh 13

Mansoor Amjad b V R Singh 4

Bazid Khan c Dhawan b Jadeja 87

*Hasan Raza st Karthik b Piyush Chawla 11

Misbah-ul-Haq c Rohit Sharma b Sodhi 17

Yasir Arafat b V R Singh 0

†Zulqarnain Haider c R P Singh b Sodhi 1

Umar Gul b R P Singh 5

Mohammad Irshad not out 6

Extras (b4, lb20, w13, nb2) 39

Total (all out, 49.1 overs) 235

Fall: 1-14, 2-40, 3-53, 4-125, 5-146, 6-170, 7-171, 8-186, 9-212

Bowling: V R Singh 10-1-33-3 (3w); R P Singh 9-0-39-2 (3w,2nb); Sodhi 6-0-34-2; Jadeja 9.1-2-28-2 (2w); Piyush Chawla 10-0-46-1; Venugopal Rao 2-0-10-0 (2w); Badrinath 3-0-21-0 (3w)

Result: India A won by 34 runs

Points: India A 5, Pakistan A 1

Man of the Match: Vikram Singh

Umpires: R Martinesz (Sri Lanka) and S S Prasad (Singapore)

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