The Hindu : Sport / Cricket : Venugopala Rao's 156 not enough for Andhra

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Monday, Jan 03, 2005

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Venugopala Rao's 156 not enough for Andhra

By Our Special Correspondent

VISAKHAPATNAM, JAN. 2. Y. Venugopala Rao's 156 was not enough for Andhra as Gujarat gained a first-innings lead of 106 runs on the penultimate day of the Ranji Trophy Elite Group `A' match at the Ukku Stadium here on Sunday. The visitors added 55 runs to the lead with both its openers at the crease at stumps.

Venugopala played a superb knock, slamming 25 boundaries in his 295-ball knock that lasted 442 minutes. He lost his overnight partner, Y. Gnaneswara Rao, with 27 runs added to the overnight fourth wicket stand of 120 runs.

Gnaneswar added seven runs to his second day's total of 54 before he edged one to wicketkeeper Nilesh Modi while trying to cut the medium pacer Hitesh Mazumdar.

Left-arm medium pacer Ashraf Makda removed Pradeep and Shahabuddin to push Andhra deeper into trouble. Pradeep's attempted cut went to the wicketkeeper and Shahabuddin, trying to loft Makda, was caught at mid-on by Mazumdar.

Balaji Kishan Singh (26, 4x4) joined his captain and revived Andhra hopes to an extent in a 59-run stand for the seventh wicket. It was during this stand Venugopala completed his 12th first class century.

The scores:

Gujarat — 1st innings: 420

Andhra — 1st innings: Manoj Sai lbw L. Patel 8, L.N.P. Reddy c Modi b Patel 10, Varma c Patel b Trivedi 0, Y. Venugopala Rao c Trivedi b Patel 156, Y. Gnaneswara Rao c Modi b Mazumdar 61, Pradeep c Modi b Makda 17, Shahabuddin c Mazumdar b Makda 12, B.K. Singh (run out) 26, Faiq lbw b Mazumdar 6, Praveen (run out) 6, Kalyan (not out) 0, Extras (b-1, lb-3, nb-8): 12. Total (in 115.4 overs) 314.

Fall of wickets: 1-20, 2-21, 3-26, 4-173, 5-202, 6-226, 7-285, 8-298, 9-314.

Gujarat bowling: Trivedi 23-4-77-1, Patel 21.4-4-56-3, Mazumdar 18-3-42-2, Makda 25-6-63-2, Yadav 21-4-59-0, Damani 7-2-13-0.

Gujarat — 2nd innings: H. Joshipura (batting) 16, A. Christian (batting) 38, Extras (nb-1): 1. Total (for no loss in 21 overs): 55.

Andhra bowling: Shahabuddin 7-3-13-0, Kalyan 5-2-12-0, Praveen 5-0-22-0, Faiq 3-1-8-0, Singh 1-1-0-0.

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