Dhruv Jurel scored his second half-century of the match on the third day of the second unofficial Australia A vs India A Test in Melbourne on Saturday.
Jurel, who was retained by the Rajasthan Royals ahead of the auction for Indian Premier League 2025, scored five boundaries to top-score for India A again with a 122-ball 68.
His patient knock guided India A to 229 in their second innings at the Melbourne Cricket Ground and set a target of 168 for Australia A to chase in the fourth innings.
The wicketkeeper-batter, who reached Australia ahead of the second unofficial Test against Australia A, had some valuable game time ahead of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy between Australia and India starting on November 22.
Apart from Jurel, KL Rahul, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Nitish Kumar Reddy and Prasidh Krishna are the others in the India A squad who have also been selected to the Indian cricket team for the five-match Test series against the Aussies.
Trailing by 62 runs, India A were pushed to the wall in their second essay on day two with the top-order failing yet again. Jurel walked into the middle at 44/4 which soon became 56/5.
With the team still in deficit, Jurel found support from Nitish (38) and the pair ensured that India A did not suffer further damage ending the second day at 73/5.
The 23-year-old Jurel showed great patience to keep the scoreboard ticking with ones and twos and latched on to the scoring opportunities whenever the bowlers erred in length. He brought up his second fifty of the match, in 86 balls, with a double of Beau Webster on the on-side.
Jurel and Nitish added 94 runs for the sixth wicket before the Royals batter got out, being the only India A player to score 50 or more in the match. Tanush Kotian scored 44 runs and Prasidh ended with 29 pushing India A to a respectable total.
For Australia A, Corey Rocchiccioli finished with 4/74 while Beau Webster and Nathan McAndrew picked up three and two wickets, respectively.
Earlier, Prasidh bowled an impressive spell of 4/50 to restrict Australia A’s first-innings tally to 223, a lead of 62 runs. He was well-supported by Mukesh Kumar who got three wickets and Khaleel Ahmed who fetched two.
India A eventually lost the match by six wickets despite early strikes by Prasidh Krishna that saw Australia A at 1/2. Sam Konstas led the chase with an unbeaten 73 to help the hosts seal the game.
