Agar, Holland dominate third day of practice match

Australia spinners Ashton Agar and Jon Holland dominated proceedings in the final day of Australia’s intra-squad match at Darwin.

In a wicket that was prepared to mimic pitches that Australia might face in Bangladesh, the spinners ran riot.

The Australia players had previously lauded the fact that Darwin was a great location to be preparing for the Bangladesh tour.

The pitches had quite a bit of wear and tear (some artificial according to cricket.com.au) helped the spinners. The priority was for the top order batsmen to get some quality time in the middle but wickets fell ‘thick and fast’ on the third day.

Left-arm spinner Holland changed teams to open the bowling today and claimed four wickets in 11 balls, grabbing the wickets of Hilton Cartwright (0), Adam Zampa (0), Peter Handscomb (2) and Jake Weatherald (0).

While Holland is not part of the Bangladesh tour, however, the Aussies possibly had Shakib Al Hasan in mind when they picked the spinner for the intra-squad match and it was a good idea to face Holland’s music before the tour.

Holland proceeded to change teams again and then bowled two overs where he got another wicket.

Left arm tweaker Ashton Agar bowled 12 overs and grabbed four wickets as well. Leg spinner Adam Zampa also took two late wickets to finish the practice match.

Pacer Jackson Bird also got a taste of the action after having been unable to bowl the first two days. He was on the mark, taking the scalp of Umar Khwaja, who scored one run from 41 deliveries.

While the result was immaterial, the game carris hints that Bangladesh can put some pressure on the Australians with their own arsenal of spinners. However, Australia will be just as much excited about their spinners putting the squeeze on the Bangladesh batsmen.

Scores in brief

David Warner's XI: 1st innings: 6-360 declared (Handscomb 105, Weatherald 96, Cartwright 81; Hazlewood 2-30, Smith 2-52)

2nd innings: 9-181 (Head 104 retired; Holland 4-1)

Steve Smith's XI: 1st innings: 6-181 declared (Smith 84 retired, Maxwell 45; Lyon 2-27, Cummins 1-39)

2nd innings: 142 (Swepson 31no, Maxwell 31; Agar 4-56, Lyon 2-26)

Result: David Warner's XI win by 218 runs.