Ruturaj Gaikwad’s century secures win for India A:Men in Blue beat South Africa-A by 4 wickets; Harshit Rana scalps two wickets

India-A defeated South Africa-A by 4 wickets in the first ODI to take a 1-0 lead in the series. In Rajkot, the visiting team scored 285 runs, losing 9 wickets. In response, India completed the chase in the 50th over for 4 wickets. Notably, vice-captain Ruturaj Gaikwad scored century (117) for the team. South Africa recovered after a poor start At the Niranjan Shah Stadium, South Africa won the toss and chose to bat. The team had a poor start, losing 5 wickets for just 53 runs. Qeshile scored 15, and Rivaldo Moonsamy scored 10 runs. Rubin Hermann, Jordan Hermann, and Captain Marques Ackerman could not even score a single run, departing for the duck. In the lower order, Dian Forrester, Delano Potgieter, and Bjorn Fortuin then scored fifties. Forrester was out for 77, Potgieter for 90, and Fortuin for 59, taking the team close to 300. Finally, Tian van Vuuren scored 16 runs to take the score to 285. Also Read| IPL 2026 auction date out: Bidding to take place on 16 December in Abu Dhabi Harshit-Arshdeep take 2 wickets each For India-A, fast bowlers Arshdeep Singh and Harshit Rana took 2 wickets each. Prasidh Krishna got 1 wicket. Spinners Nishant Sindhu and Riyan Parag also took 1 wicket each. Meanwhile, medium pacer Nitish Reddy got 1 wicket, with Vipraj Nigam and Tilak Varma going without wickets. India-A wins by Gaikwad’s century Chasing a big target, India-A got a strong start from Ruturaj Gaikwad and Abhishek Sharma. Both formed an opening partnership of 64 runs. Abhishek was out after scoring 31 runs. After him, Riyan Parag also returned to the pavilion after scoring just 8 runs. Captain Tilak Varma took the team past 100 runs, but he was out after scoring 39 runs. Gaikwad remained firm at one end. Wicketkeeper Ishan Kishan was out for 17 runs in front of him. Gaikwad scored a century, but he returned to the pavilion after scoring 117 runs. After him, Nitish Reddy scored 37, Nishant Sindhu 29, and Harshit Rana 6 runs to lead the team to victory in 49.3 overs. Second ODI set to take place on November 16 For South Africa-A, Tian van Vuuren, Bjorn Fortuin, and Ottneil Baartman took 2 wickets each. Jordan Hermann, Delano Potgieter, and Tshepo Moreki could not take any wickets. The second ODI will be played in Rajkot on 16th November. The Test series between both teams was drawn 1-1.