The Hindu : Sport : Sathish (178 n.o.) leads Assam's fightback

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Dec 07, 2004

Sport

Sport

Sathish (178 n.o.) leads Assam's fightback

By Our Special Correspondent

Assam's R. Sathish acknowledges the cheers of the crowd after scoring a century. — PTI

GUWAHATI, DEC. 6. Where there is a will there is a way. Assam's Tamil Nadu import R. Sathish proved this adage by scoring a fabulous century and guided his side past the follow-on target on the third day of the four-day Elite group B Ranji Trophy match at the Nehru Stadium here on Monday.

The 23-year-old Thiruchhirapalli-born powered to his fourth century — all for Assam — and took the team's first innings total to 386 for eight at close.

By stumps, Sathish was unbeaten on his career-best 178. Giving him company was No. 10 Raj Kumar Yadav on nine.

Assam, which had already denied Tamil Nadu four points, would need 90 runs more on Tuesday to send the last two years' finalist home empty handed.

For almost nine minutes short of six hours, Sathish held sway over a toothless Tamil Nadu attack. He moved over to Assam last year after failing to find a permanent place in the Tamil Nadu side.

He scored three hundreds for his adopted state last season with 133 against Hyderabad being his best till this one. He was one of the prominent member of the Deodhar Trophy winning East Zone side where he excelled with the bat and was one of the outstanding fielders.

Coming in at the fall of Vasanth Saravanan (50, 102m, 93b, 9x4, 1x6) at 133 for three in the 37th over this morning, Sathish was yet to open his account when his captain Syed Zakaria Zuffri (49, 154m, 103b, 11x4) left at 134 in the 38th over.

Determined partner

At that stage it looked that Assam would fold up quickly. But Satish had other ideas as he worked the ball around confidently first in the company of Pravez Aziz (18), Chandan Rawat (1) and Sukhvinder Singh (10) before finding a determined partner in debutant Gokul Sharma.

From 217 for seven at lunch, the two took the score to 303 for seven at tea. During this phase Sathish reached his 100 in little over four hours with the help of 16 hit boundaries.

Sharma held on at the other end for eight minutes less than three hours for 29 runs.

When Sharma finally left taken by Sriram at square leg off TN's most impressive bowler, M.R. Shrinivas, the two had added 130 for the eighth wicket and more importantly brought Assam close to the follow-on target.

Sathish on 123 at the time of Sharma's dismissal went after the TN bowling and added 65 runs for the unfinished ninth-wicket with Raj Kumar Yadav in 23 overs.

Sathish, who played 266 balls, did look vulnerable to short pitched balls outside the off stump or thereabouts but Hemang Badani never tried to trap him. A few shots of his flew in the air on the leg side too but each time it was beyond the fielder's hand. Sathish's knock contained 29 delightful hits to the ropes.

To the exception of Shrinivas, none of the Tamil Nadu bowlers impressed. The three left-arm spinners did not believe in the virtue of buying the wicket with flight and guile.

The scores:

Tamil Nadu — 1st innings: 485.

Assam — 1st innings: P. Das c Badani b Shrinivas 17; S. Saikia lbw b Shrinivas 4; S.Z. Zuffri c Badani b Suresh 49; V. Saravanan c Sriram b Shrinivas 50; R. Sathish (batting) 178; P. Aziz c Ramesh b Raghuram 18; C. Rawat c Vidyuth b Ramkumar 1; Sukhvinder c Vikramkumar b Vidyuth 10; G. Sharma c Sriram b Shrinivas 29; R. Yadav (batting) 9. Extras (b-6, lb-3, nb-22): 31. Total (for eight wicket) 396.

Fall of wickets: 1-9, 2-47, 3-133, 4-134, 5-171, 6-178, 7-201, 8-331.

Tamil Nadu bowling: Shrinivas 30-7-105-4, Suresh 20-5-60-1, Ramkumar 30-4-87-1, Raghuram 19-4-59-1, Vidyuth 20-4-63-1, Badrinath 1-1-0-0, Sriram 2-0-13-0.

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