Sai Sudharsan and Abhishek Sharma slammed scintillating fifties to complement the efforts of the bowlers as India A qualified for the semifinals with a dominating nine-wicket win over Nepal in their second match of the ACC Men's Emerging Cup in Colombo on Monday.
Electing to bat, Nepal were all out for 167 in 39.2 overs with Nishant Sindhu (4/14), Rajvardhan Hangargekar (3/25), Harshit Rana (2/16) and Manav Suthar (1/31) producing breakthroughs at regular intervals.
For Nepal, skipper Rohit Paudel was the top-scorer as he made 65 off 85 balls, while Gulsan Jha made a 30-ball 38 to give some momentum to the innings at the R Premadasa Stadium.
Abhishek (87 off 69) and Sudharshan (58 off 52) then provided a flying start to India's chase, adding 139 in 19 overs for the opening wicket.
After Sharma was dismissed by Paudel, Dhruv Jurel joined the party and put the finishing touches with a 12-ball 21 which had a four and two maximums, including the last shot which brought up the winning runs for India.
It was Sharma, who produced the fireworks early on, blasting 12 fours and two sixes in his 69-ball innings. Sudarsan also had eight hits to the fence and one over the rope.
After this win, India gained four points to consolidate their position at the top of the table with two wins out of two and a net run rate of +3.9.
India had defeated UAE in their opening match.
India will play Pakistan in their final league match on Wednesday.
