Kolkata: The Indian U-19 side continued with their good form as they trounced hosts England by a huge margin of 169 runs in the third ODI held at Hove to clinch the five-match series 3-0.
Batting first, the visitors lost Himanshu Rana quite early with just 18 runs on the board. Skipper Prithvi Shaw fought his way to 26 before being dismissed by Jack Plom. Coming to bat at number three, Shubman Gill was the star of the Indian batting as his magnificent 147 of just 127 balls, which included 19 fours and two sixes helped the Indians post a total well above 300. No other batsman in the team could score a fifty but it would be wrong to say that there wasn’t any contribution made.
Wicketkeeper batsman Het Patel came up with 38 runs before he was run out. Abhishek Sharma hit three fours and one six in his 31-run knock. Right-hander Salman Khan played a cameo of 26 runs from 16 balls and Anukul Roy, the left-arm spinner too chipped in with 22 runs to take the Indian total to 327/7 in their 50 overs.
In reply, right-arm quickie Kamlesh Nagarkoti removed both the openers- Liam Trevaskis and Liam Banks for ducks, giving the Indians a fantastic start. He struck again to remove Will Jacks for 16 and Shivam Mavi then ended the English skipper Harry Brook’s short stay at the crease for just 12 and England looked to be losing the plot against the visitors.
However Tom Banton fought back for the hosts with 53 runs and Tom Lammonby too contributed with 24 runs but the rest of the batting couldn’t do enough to even take their team closer to the Indian total.
Shubman Gill who had earlier tormented the English bowlers with his bat then returned to dismiss the last two batsmen shooting out the hosts for just 158 runs to gain an unassailable 3-0 lead in the five-match series.
The fourth and fifth ODI would be played in Bristol and Taunton respectively.