Harris, Burns plunder huge stand for Aus A

As was the case in the one-day series, Australia A's top order looks set to deprive the batsmen below of time in the middle after openers Marcus Harris and Joe Burns piled on the runs on day two of their match against Sussex.

Harris (100 not out) and Burns (88 not out) put on an unbeaten 203-run partnership in glorious conditions at picturesque Arundel to trail Sussex by just 60 runs having bowled out the hosts for 263 after lunch on day two.

The top-order dominance from Harris and Burns mirrors the feats of Matt Wade in the 50-over leg of Australia's A campaign, where he rendered the tourists' run chases virtually redundant with huge scores in rapid time.

Wade's bulldozing efforts paved the way for his call-up to Australia's World Cup squad following the hamstring injury Usman Khawaja suffered in the loss to South Africa on Saturday, and both Harris and Burns will hope to replicate the Tasmanian once more with selection for higher honours in the Ashes squad.

The pair is Australia's incumbent Test opening partnership but with David Warner expected to return to the top of the order for the first Ashes Test at Edgbaston from August 1, they could be battling it out for the same spot.

But the friendly rivalry was put to one side on Monday as together they put the Sussex attack to the sword.

Harris peppered the square boundaries early on in his innings before leaning into textbooks cover drives later on as he reached his half-century from 77 balls with eight fours.

Burns, who is only playing in this match due to Wade's promotion to the World Cup squad having arrived in England on Thursday, took 96 balls to get to his 50 but - more importantly - soaked up valuable time at the crease, arriving at the milestone after two hours in the middle.

The right-hander offered the only chances across 49 overs; a French cut against the new ball and a streaky late cut against spin that whizzed past first slip.

As the shadows crept across the pristine outfield, Harris and Burns kept ticking the scoreboard over, scoring at better than four runs an over as Harris closed in on his 12th first-class hundred.

A pull shot off allrounder Delray Rawlins to the fine-leg rope from the penultimate ball of the day took Harris from 96 to 100 and provided the exclamation mark on a dominant day for the Australians.

Earlier in the day, it took six overs for the visitors to capture the sixth Sussex wicket when Michael Neser (2-45) bowled Abidine Sakande neck and crop for a 16-ball duck.

But Tim Paine's side would have to wait another 30 overs to pick up the final four wickets of the innings.

While Burns had a good day with the bat, he put down two catches at second slip off tyro James Pattinson (4-60), who snared his fourth wicket when Burns managed to hold on to a sharp chance and remove Adam Rouse. 

Free-swinging allrounder Rawlins flayed 10 fours and a six before he shouldered arms to an innocuous delivery from left-arm spinner Jon Holland (3-49) and was out lbw for 69 on the stroke of lunch.

Image Id: AC44A00292604235BAE60E473D3E4358 Image Caption: Harris struck 16 boundaries in his innings // Getty

Following the main break, Holland outfoxed Aaron Thomason with a quicker ball that clattered into the batsman's stumps and then collected the final wicket, daring No.11 Mir Hamza to hit another six off his bowling.

Hamza took the bait but mistimed his shot, sending it skywards for Jackson Bird (1-44) to pedal back at long-on and take a good catch.

Australia A tour of the UK

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Australia A one-day squad: Travis Head (c), Matthew Wade, Will Pucovski, Peter Handscomb, Mitch Marsh (vc), D'Arcy Short, Kurtis Patterson, Ashton Agar, Michael Neser, James Pattinson, Josh Hazlewood (vc), Sean Abbott, Andrew Tye

Australia A four-day squad: Tim Paine (c), Marcus Harris, Kurtis Patterson, Will Pucovski, Travis Head (vc), Peter Handscomb, Matthew Wade, Mitch Marsh, Michael Neser, Jon Holland, James Pattinson, Jackson Bird, Josh Hazlewood (vc), Chris Tremain

One-day fixtures:

June 20: Australia A beat Northamptonshire by six wickets

June 23: Australia A beat Derbyshire by seven wickets

June 25: Australia A v Worcestershire, match abandoned

June 30: Australia A beat Gloucestershire by five wickets

July 2: Australia A beat Gloucestershire by nine runs

Four-day fixtures:

July 7-10: Australia A v Sussex, Arundel

July 13-16: Australia A v England Lions, Canterbury

July 23-26: Australia v Australia A, Hampshire