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TN fails to capitalise on good start

A. Joseph Antony

CRICKET / Ganapathy’s unbeaten knock helps his team reach 445

— PHOTO: K. RAMESH BABU

VALIANT KNOCK: Tamil Nadu’s C. Ganapathy made an unconquered 67 to boost his team’s total.

NAGPUR: From its overnight score of 296 for two, Tamil Nadu hit a trough, tumbled to 383 for eight before it recouped to tally 445, thanks to a valiant and unconquered 67 by C. Ganapathy. In response, Uttar Pradesh closed the day at 25 for the loss of Tanmay Srivastava.

The second day of the Ranji Trophy semifinal at the VCA Stadium began with not a soul in the stands of the grand edifice, a sprinkling of spectators trickling in towards the end. Minutes into the day, Badrinath’s boundary took Tamil Nadu to 300.

Short-lived

The stand between the former skipper and his successor was short-lived though, Badrinath’s inner edge off Praveen Kumar picked up by wicketkeeper Aamir Khan.

Khan combined with the U.P. spearhead to engineer the exits of Dinesh Karthik and S. Suresh. The feather-weight wicketkeeper, who in all effected half a dozen dismissals, went on to pouch R. Ashwin and L. Balaji in identical fashion, off Imtiyaz Ahmed.

Time and again, Praveen Kumar beat the bat, but was low on luck. Karthik (72, 186m, 147b, 12x4) faced him with a measure of comfort, his cover-drives off the paceman right out of the copy-book. A tickle down the leg had his counterpart leaping to the left to latch on to a low catch.

Procession

A procession of sorts to the pavilion then slowed the strokeplay considerably till Ganapathy took charge. Farming most of the strike, he batted with an air of assurance interspersing his straight drives with some lusty pulls. His two-and-three-quarter-hour vigil had 10 hits to the fence.

Ganapathy it was who struck first when defending the Tamil Nadu total. He had U.P. opener Tanmay dabbing at an outswinger that was snapped up by Badrinath at second slip. The northern side took a minute short of an hour to enter double figures, thwarted thus far by the TN attack’s taut line and backed by some tight fielding.

The scores:

Tamil Nadu — 1st innings: Abhinav c Aamir b Bhuvneshwar 100, M. Vijay c Praveen Kumar b Parvinder 69, S. Badrinath c Aamir b Praveen Kumar 65, Dinesh Karthik c Aamir b Praveen Kumar 72, S. Vidyut b Bhuvneshwar 3, S. Suresh Kumar c Aamir b Praveen Kumar 12, R. Ashwin c Aamir b Imtiyaz 15, C. Ganapathy (not out) 67, L. Balaji c Aamir b Imtiyaz 17, C. Suresh lbw b Raina 5, P. Amarnath (run out) 3; Extras (b-6, lb-6, w-5): 17; Total (in 164.5 overs): 445.

Fall of wickets: 1-167, 2-182, 3-303, 4-318, 5-324, 6-346, 7-353, 8-383, 9-431.

U.P. bowling: Praveen Kumar 41-11-104-3, Bhuvneshwar Kumar 35-9-82-2 , Imtiyaz Ahmed 24-4-74-2, Piyush Chawla 28.5-6-82-0, Praveen Gupta 19-7-60-0, Parvinder Singh 13-5-21-1, Suresh Raina 4-0-10-1.

U.P. — 1st innings: Tanmay Srivastava c Badrinath b Ganapathy 1, Shivakant Shukla (batting) 10, Suresh Raina (batting) 13; Extras (lb-1): 1; Total (for one wkt. in 19 overs): 25.

Fall of wicket: 1-1.

Tamil Nadu bowling: L. Balaji 7-5-5-0, C. Ganapathy 6-4-4-1, P. Amarnath 4-1-9-0, C. Suresh 2-0-6-0.

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