TN, Delhi take crucial lead

Hyderabad: If it was heartbreak for host Hyderabad, which failed to take a crucial first innings lead, Tamil Nadu achieved it by the proverbial whisker on an eventful second day of the semifinal matches in the All India Coromandel King Moin-ud-Dowlah Gold Cup invitation cricket tournament here on Saturday. Tamil Nadu took a five-run lead over Karnataka after being all out for 392 runs. It was an interesting match as players from both sides shared the honours.

Karnataka was in a position of strength in the initial stages when left-arm medium pacer, S Aravind, struck vital blows. However, Tamil Nadu owed their comeback to the scintillating 200 runs partnership for the fifth wickets between B Aparajith (122) and S Suresh Kumar (105). It came from 248 balls and lasted 164 minutes. Arvind returned with a magnificent haul of 7/72 from 19.4 overs.

Meanwhile, Hyderabad was able to muster 383 for eight wickets in the stipulated 90 overs after all the frontline batsmen contributed useful scores. Amol Shinde top scored with 67. But they fell short of DDCA’s 387 for six wickets on Friday.

Brief scores-Semifinals-Day 2: At RGICS: DDCA 387 for 6 in 90 overs vs Hyderabad 383 for 8 in 90 overs (T Suman 41, P Akshath Reddy 52, Rahul Singh 49, Amol Shinde 67, A Ashish Reddy 51, Habeeb Ahmed 48no, Parwinder Awana 2/86, Sumit Narwal 2/44); At ECIL: Karnataka 387 vs Tamil Nadu 392 (Ganga Sridhar Raju 32, B Aparajith 122, S Suresh Kumar 105, U Sushil 56, R Rohit 40no, S Aravind 7/72)