da pinup bet： Tamil Nadu were held to a draw by Kerala in a nail-biting contest at the ICLGurunanak College Ground, Chennai, in the P Ramachandra Rao Trophy for theUnder-22, on Saturday
da mrbet： Santhosh S16-Dec-2000Tamil Nadu were held to a draw by Kerala in a nail-biting contest at the ICLGurunanak College Ground, Chennai, in the P Ramachandra Rao Trophy for theUnder-22, on Saturday. The excitement came to an abrupt end as the match had tobe called off due to bad pitch conditions.Invited to bat first by Kerala, Tamil Nadu did not make an impressive start totheir first innings as they lost three wickets with just 50 on the board. TamilNadu Ranji player Hemanth Kumar who came in as one-drop steadied the inningswith a 57 run partnership with SS Viswanathan (18). R Satish came in next andplayed a gem of an innings of 62 (76 balls, 9 fours) helping Hemanth to add 114for the fifth wicket. Hemanth went on to complete his brilliant century and made136 in 233 balls, lacing his innings with eighteen hits to the ropes beforebeing dismissed. At the end of the first day’s play Tamil Nadu declared theirfirst innings closed at 313/6 in 90 overs. MR Shrinivas and K Manoharan remainedunbeaten with 37 and 20 respectively.The second morning saw Kerala going out to bat and struggling all the way along.L Balaji (12-7-14-3) and Ram Kumar (22-9-37-4) saw that Tamil Nadu gained thefirst innings lead dismissing Kerala for 183 in 81.2 overs. V Girilal with apatient 60 and S Baiju with 41 were the only batsmen to make any impression.Tamil Nadu went on the offensive in their second innings with VidyutSivaramakrishnan who opened the innings blasting a thunderbolt of a century in84 balls. Sivaramakrishnan remained unbeaten on 100 including 9 fours and a sixas Tamil Nadu declared on 160/4 made in 22.1 overs.Requiring 291 to win in 71 overs Kerala struggled on to 179/8 in 65.3 overs asthe match was called off. There were 5.3 mandatory overs remaining in the match.S Baiju was the mainstay of the Kerala second innings remaining unbeaten on 80(13 fours) at the close of play. Baiju and Tinu Yohannan (15) played for almost18 overs putting on a defiant 64 for the ninth wicket. Rajat Bhatia was the pickof the bowlers finishing with the figures of 8-3-21-3. Tamil Nadu collected fivepoints to Kerala’s three.
