India stumble after Chawla's five-wicket haul

India A 6 for 209 (Badrinath 55) trail New Zealand A (McMillan 108, Chawla 5-86) by 123 runs
Scorecard

India A stuttered in their first innings after Piyush Chawla's five-wicket haul helped restrict New Zealand A to 332 on the second day of their Top End Series encounter in Darwin. Craig McMillan played the lone hand for his side, scoring 108, while Chawla plugged away, as India took the last five wickets for only 20 runs.

Resuming from their overnight score of 4 for 257, the New Zealanders lost an early wicket when the accurate Rudra Pratap Singh got Mark Orchard to edge to Parthiv Patel. Having lost a wicket without adding to their overnight score, McMillan and Gareth Hopkins fought back with 55 for the sixth wicket before Chawla started the collapse. He bowled Hopkins for 17, and accounted for Jeetan Patel and Hamish Bennett to bag his fifth five-wicket haul in first-class cricket.

India suffered early setbacks as seamers Chris Martin and Orchard accounted for both openers. Parthiv showed some resistance with 35, before New Zealand struck with two wickets in quick succession to set India back further at 4 for 47. S Badrinath was the top scorer with 55, adding 53 for the fifth wicket with Reetinder Sodhi. India were in further trouble at 6 for 142, but Rohit Sharma and Tejinder Pal Singh combined to add an unbeaten 67, with both scoring 41 each.