The Hindu : Sport / Cricket : TN's resilience on display

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Wednesday, Jan 12, 2005

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Sport - Cricket

TN's resilience on display

By Our Sports Reporter

MADGAON, JAN. 11. Under the warm Goan skies, Tamil Nadu has so far lived up to its aura of being the defending champion in the Subbaiah Pillai Trophy South Zone limited overs tournament that saw a break here on Tuesday.

Tamil Nadu, with ten points from two matches, may well enjoy its sunny moments as its batsmen have batted with purpose and the bowlers led by seamer Jesuraj have struck in tandem to ensure facile victories over Goa and Karnataka.

Prior to the tournament, the absence of the injured duo of Hemang Badani and L. Balaji cast a shadow on the team's fortunes. Then skipper Sriram split his right palm's webbing in the opening match against Goa and was rendered unfit for the remainder of the tournament. ``I give myself only a 25 per cent chance of playing in the last match here", said Sriram.

However to the credit of the Tamil Nadu's players and in a performance that speaks about their resilience, the absence of proven players has not been felt so far. Vidyut, stand-in skipper Badrinath, veteran S. Sharath, Hemant Kumar and Dinesh Kaarthick have anchored the innings well.

Tamil Nadu will hope to extend its good run as it readies for a key contest against Hyderabad here on the morrow.Karnataka (three points), after displaying nerves of steel in snatching an improbable victory over Hyderabad, slumped with an 82-run defeat against Tamil Nadu.

Karnataka's batting has failed repeatedly this season and in the one-dayers, its all-rounders, led by B. Akhil, C. Raghu and Sunil Joshi, have bailed the innings out of its top-order blues.

The bowling did look ragged against Tamil Nadu and the omission of seamer D. Vinay Kumar from the playing eleven, despite bagging 23 wickets in the Ranji season, has been a matter of concern.

``We have to win all three remaining matches", said skipper Sujith Somasundar.

Kerala, Goa impressive

Minnows Kerala and Goa meanwhile have enough reasons to rejoice. Kerala (8 points) defeated Andhra and upset Hyderabad while Goa (3 points), after a loss to Tamil Nadu, swept Andhra aside on Monday to live up to its coach S. Pednekar's words, ``we will fight".

Wednesday's matches: Tamil Nadu vs. Hyderabad, Karnataka vs. Andhra, Kerala vs. Goa.

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