The Hindu : Sport / Cricket : Kaif hits century

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Friday, Dec 28, 2007
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Kaif hits century

Principal Correspondent

HYDERABAD: Uttar Pradesh stayed in contention for a possible outright win over Hyderabad, thanks to a century by captain Mohd. Kaif.

The host was struggling at 55 for two at close on the third day, chasing 438 for a win, in the Ranji Trophy super league Group ‘B’ cricket match at the Rajiv Gandhi Stadium (Uppal) here on Thursday.

Kaif, who was dropped on three by wicketkeeper Abhinav Kumar off left-arm spinner Pragyan Ojha and again, on 82 survived a stumping chance off off-spinner Vishal Sharma, went on to score an unbeaten century (100 not out, 150b, 8x4, 3x6).

In the company of Ravikant Shukla (70 not out, 107b, 14x4), he put on 170 for the fourth wicket which dashed Hyderabad’s hopes of restricting U.P. for a modest second innings score after Ojha struck twice in quick succession to reduce it to 124 for three.

Pleasing strokes

The day certainly belonged to Kaif, who played some pleasing strokes with admirable footwork against the spinners — hitting them for three huge sixes.

He made his intentions clear immediately after lunch when he walked down to loft off-spinner Amol Shinde for a straight six.

That was just the beginning of a dominant partnership during which the body language of the Hyderabad bowlers was not positive.

With news of Andhra scoring an outright win over Bengal and thereby saving the ignominy of Hyderabad being relegated to Plate division (if it were to finish at the bottom of the table, which Bengal is eventually doing), there seemed to be little motivation for the home team except to go through the motions.

When Uttar Pradesh declared its second innings at 294 for three, 13 minutes after tea, it was certainly looking for a possible victory to steer clear of all permutations and combinations which it had to engage, if it were to tie with Andhra with equal number of points after this match.

The two teams will be level on 17 points if U.P. gets only three points for the first innings lead from this contest.

Bad start

Hyderabad began the second essay with makeshift opener Abhinav Kumar trapped leg before by medium-pacer Praveen Kumar in the third over.

Then an enterprising 49–run partnership between opener S. Daniel Manohar (28 batting, 4x4) and S. Anoop Pai 24 (4x4) gave an impression that Hyderabad was serious in it’s pursuit of the target.

But Pai played an irresponsible stroke, swinging Praveen Gupta straight to mid-wicket in the last over of the day to reduce Hyderabad to 55 for two.

For Hyderabad, the bad news is the freak accident opener and the in–form D.B. Ravi Teja was involved in when his car rammed into another right in front of the Stadium gate in the morning.

His neck needed immediate medical attention and it is not known for sure whether he will play on Friday or not.

The scores:

Uttar Pradesh — 1st innings: 336.

Hyderabad — 1st innings: 193.

Uttar Pradesh — 2nd innings: R.P. Srivastava lbw b P. Ojha 56, T.N. Srivastava lbw b A. Shinde 54, S.K. Raina lbw b P. Ojha 10, Mohd. Kaif (not out) 100, R. Shukla (not out) 70, Extras (b-2, lb-2): 4; Total (for three wkts. decl. in 83.4 overs): 294.

Fall of wickets: 1-100, 2-116, 3-124.

Hyderabad bowling: Arjun 12-3-48-0, Ojha 35.4-9-109-2, Vishal 10-0-62-0, Shinde 25-7-65-1, Shoaib 1-0-6-0.

Hyderabad — 2nd innings: S.D. Manohar (batting) 28, Abhinav Kumar lbw b Praveen Kumar 2, S.A. Pai c B. Kumar b P. Gupta 24, S.M. Shoaib (batting) 0, Extras (nb-1): 1; Total (for two wkts. in 16 overs): 55.

Fall of wickets: 1-6, 2-55.

Uttar Pradesh bowling: Praveen 7-2-19-1, B. Kumar 3-1-13-0, Tyagi 4-1-17-0, Gupta 2-1-6-1.

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