It was the 49th over. India Green spinner Shreyas Gopal had bowled two deliveries which Mayank Agarwal had defended on 99. He moved aside, closed his eyes for a second or two, took strike again and pulled Gopal's third one to the mid-wicket boundary. Arms were now raised, less in celebration and more in relief. Understandably so the latter would be the more dominant emotion looking at his first class record
Mayank Agarwal
Grerater Noida: It was the 49th over. India Green spinner Shreyas Gopal had bowled two deliveries which Mayank Agarwal had defended on 99. He moved aside, closed his eyes for a second or two, took strike again and pulled Gopal's third one to the mid-wicket boundary. Arms were now raised, less in celebration and more in relief. Understandably so the latter would be the more dominant emotion looking at his first class record.
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Mayank Agarwal
In 33 innings of his 20 first class games before this one, he had one century and eight half-centuries. The previous game against India Red, Agarwal was stumped on 92. His reputation as someone having regular brain fades after getting set was creating indifferent opinions in the cricketing circles. His inconsistency had cost him to be benched in most of the games in the 2014-15 season for Karnataka. In a post-match press conference during the last game, the 25-year-old would say that he would look "at the brighter side, though it is quite hurtful to have missed out (on a century)."
Batting with Gambhir, Agarwal in the last game termed it a "tremendous experience" and learning points like "when the ball is moving; not to follow the ball and just play the line."
Duleep brief scores
India Blue 336-3 (M Agarwal 161, G Gambhir 90, C Pujara 63*) vs India Green