Australia A 229 for 8 (Short 52, Davies 48, O’Rourke 3-44) beat New Zealand A 228 (Seifert 100, Carter 41, Thornton 4-32) by two wickets
Will Sutherland returned to bowling for the first time since the end of last season then played an important hand with the bat to help Australia A to a narrow victory in the final one-day game against New Zealand A and a 3-0 series scoreline.
Sutherland, who was captaining Australia A, took 1 for 20 from six overs in his first competitive bowl since suffering a stress fracture in the Sheffield Shield final. He then made 32 as part of a seventh-wicket stand of 52 with Ollie Davies to take the home side to the brink of victory after they had lost wickets regularly in the chase.
Tim Seifert dominated with the bat for New Zealand A with a superbly-controlled century which included six sixes before being eighth out. He shared a stand of 76 with Leo Carter to lift the innings from 39 for 3.
Tom Bruce, the New Zealand A captain, had avoided three consecutive first-ball ducks but edged Sutherland to slip for 2.
When Carter fell to Tom Rogers they stuttered again until Jacob Duffy provided Seifert with support to haul the total over 200. Henry Thornton continued his remarkable few days with four more wickets to make it 11 in two outings after his 7 for 39 in the second game.
Matt Short took charge of the early stages of the chase but he fell to the very promising Will O’Rourke who then removed Josh Phillipe and Ashton Turner to bring New Zealand A back into the game.
Davies joined Matt Renshaw to settle the chase but when Renshaw drove to cover Australia A still needed 65. Davies and Sutherland got them most of the way there before Thornton’s memorable week ended with him hitting the winning runs.
It completed a good bounce back from Australia A who had lost the four-day series 2-0.
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