Australia A beat South Africa A by 108 runs thanks to a sparkling 130 in 106 balls from man of the match Matthew Wade.
The unbeaten Australians will now play either South Africa or India in Friday’s final in Chennai, with the two teams meeting tomorrow to determine who progresses.
See full scorecard HERE.
A number of the Australia A side, including wicketkeeper-batsman Wade, were buoyed by the win and also their call-ups to the Australia one-day tour of England.
“It’s a good day,” proclaimed Wade. “I found out about the one-day squad yesterday, so excited to play the rest of this series and then get on a plane and go play the One-Day Internationals against England - will be good fun.
“It’s a good lead up to the ODIs over there so I thought there was a good chance of that,” he added. “In terms of the Test position, who knows what’s going to go on there over the next four or five months. Obviously Hads (Brad Haddin) got dropped and Nevvy (Peter Nevill) has taken his chance, so only time will tell on that.”
Wade has certainly put himself into the selectors minds during this A tour. His match-winning century included 9 fours and 7 sixes and the 27-year-old believes his game is in great shape to take on England.
“Any time you get to spend time in the middle leading into the ODIs is good,” he stated. “We’ve got a good period of time before we play the first ODI over there, so we’ll have plenty of net time and be ready to go.”
Also called up to the Australian squads were Nathan Coulter-Nile (2 for 8 from 7 overs), Ashton Agar (3 for 41) and Cameron Boyce (3 for 48) who combined to dismiss South Africa A for 164 in 37.1 overs to claim the bonus point win.
Earlier after winning the toss and electing to bat, Wade’s runs and 52 from fellow Victorian Peter Handscomb led the way.
Lonwabo Tsotsobe (3 for 50) was the pick of the South Africa A bowlers as they dismissed Australia A for 272 in the 48th over.
Captain Dean Elgar (64) top-scored for the South Africans, but their tail lost 5 for 22 to fall 108 runs short of Australia’s total.
Today’s match was played following a day’s postponement after a number of South Africa A players were hospitalised earlier this week due to illness.
James Buttler
As the editor of Cricket Badger he is intent on building the website to give quality coverage of the domestic game around the world.
James was the full-time Media Manager at Yorkshire County Cricket Club between 2007 and 2010.
James is a published author and a writer/video contributor to many cricket publications.
He's unsurprisingly a complete cricket badger!
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