For leggie Rahul Sharma, the five-wicket haul that helped India 'A' beat West Indies 'A' by 93 runs in the T20 game here on Saturday, was especially satisfying as it also signalled his return to form.
The 26-year old Sharma bamboozled the Caribbean batsmen, but more importantly, his performance came ahead of a busy season.
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“I am pleased to return with good performances after the IPL in 2012. It was a tough phase for me and I used to feel bad about it even during this season. But I had the belief that I could come out of it and do well.
“I dedicate this performance to family and friends. The coach and my teammates also helped me throughout this series with a lot of tips and I am thankful to them,” said Sharma.
“T20 game was expected to be more of a high-intensity contest when compared to the one-day series, so it was important that we won by a big margin,” he added.
West India ‘A’ skipper Kieran Powell, after leading his team to a 2-1 win in the just-concluded one-day series, was obvious disappointed by the big defeat in the T20 outing, but felt that chasing 215 was a tough ask, in the absence ofu00a0partnerships.
Four wkts in 4 balls for Russell
The only bright spot for the West Indies ‘A’ was seamer Andre Russell’s hat-trick when he took four wickets off his first four deliveries — a record in List A cricket — in the 19th over of the innings. Russell dismissed Kedar Jadhav (42), captain Yuvraj Singh (52), Naman Ojha (0) and Yusuf Pathan (0) in the first four deliveries of the penultimate over but it was too late by then for the visitors. u00a0