Dec. 2: Captain Ravi Teja led from the front as Hyderabad began a strong reply against Goa on the second day of their Ranji Trophy Plate division league match at the Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium here on Thursday.
At 133 for 1, the hosts were still 349 runs behind the visitors’ mammoth first innings total of 482. With nine wickets in hand, they would have to dig really deep for the first innings lead and look for brownie points, which is all that they can play for in this game which goes into the penultimate day on Friday, unless the game throws up a series of glorious uncertainties.
Hyderabad’s mission to claw their way back into the Elite group is seeming increasingly difficult given fellow contenders Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh’s rampaging runs. On Thursday, Rajasthan gained maximum points (6) by thrashing Tripura inside two days. Madhya Pradesh, with a 379-run first innings lead on the second day, is on course to defeating Jharkhand by a massive margin too.
All this is bad news for Hyderabad. But the good part is that their captain, who was averaging a mere 6.25 going into the game, is back among runs. On Thursday, Ravi occupied the crease for three hours and 25 minutes, much longer than the 128 minutes his last four innings put together, to stroke an unbeaten 81 that held the team together.
Ravi’s 132-ball knock contained eight boundaries and garnered the lion’s share of an unbroken stand of 62 for the second wicket with Shashank Nag (24). Ravi raised 71 for the opening wicket with Akshath Reddy (19) too.
Earlier in the day, overnight centurion Reagan Pinto went on to make 154 (427m, 273b, 21x4) and tailenders Robin D’Souza and Amit Yadav thumped 49 and 31 respectively to boost Goa’s total.
Scorecard
Goa 1st innings (overnight 334 for 5): Reagan Pinto c Akshath Reddy b Lalith Mohan 154, Saurabh Bandekar c Ibrahim Khaleel b Kaneshkk Naidu 46, Shadab Jakati c Ibrahim Khaleel b Md Khader 7, Robin D’Souza c&b Ahmed Quadri 49, Amit Yadav c Sandeep b Lalith Mohan 31, Harshad Gadekar not out 12. Extras (b-5, lb-2, w-2) 9. Total (all out in 127.1 overs) 482.
Fall of wickets: 1-34, 2-50, 3-97, 4-184, 5-269, 6-338, 7-367, 8-404, 9-445.
Bowling: Alfred Absolem 22-1-111-1, Md Khader 17-1-87-3, A. Lalith Mohan 23.1-5-70-2, Kaneshkk Naidu 28-3-84-2, Ravi Teja 14-5-21-0, Ahmed Quadri 14-1-77-1, B. Sandeep 9-1-25-0.
Hyderabad 1st innings: Akshath Reddy c Gadekar b Amit Yadav 19, Ravi Teja batting 81, P. Shashank Nag batting 24. Extras (b-2, lb-7) 9. Total (1 wicket, 50 overs) 133.
Fall of wicket: 1-71.
Bowling: Saurabh Bandekar 11-3-21-0, Shadab Jakati 11-1-32-0, Harshad Gadekar 5-2-17-0, Robin D’Souza 8-1-23-0, Amit Yadav 6-0-15-1, Vidyut Sivaramakrishnan 9-1-16-0.