Karnataka draw with Andhra

By Staff
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Google Oneindia News

Anantapur, Dec 28 (UNI) Thanks to sensible batting by yere Goud and Tilak Naidu, former champions Karnataka salvaged their pride and avoided defeat at the hands of Andhra, with their Ranji Trophy elite group-A match ending in a draw here today.

Andhra, after setting a difficult target of 405, failed to press for an outright victory as the tourists made 204, losing seven wickets in 104 overs, when both captains agreed for a draw.

Andhra gained two points from the first innings lead and took their tally to 12 points from five games, just behind leaders Baroda who have 13 points from the same number of games.

Andhra have two more assignments against Delhi at Vijayawada from January 2 and Uttar Pradesh at Kanpur beginning on January 10.

The credit for managing a draw goes to two useful partnerships covering 42.3 overs, involving Raghu and Goud for the fifth wicket and Goud and Naidu for the sixth wicket. Knowing they could not win the match, Karnataka decided to play for a draw, defending stoutly.

Resuming at the overnight score of 35/2 in 14 overs, Karnataka initially ran into trouble, losing two quick wickets in the space of seven runs. Nightwatchman Appanna was the first to go, edging to keeper M S K Prasad off Kalyankrishna, after making just two runs.

Then opener Uthappa could not stay long after completing his half century. After adding 28 runs to his overnight score of 24, he was caught by Sumanth off medium pacer Kalyankrishna. Uthappa's 52 came in 89 balls with the help of eight boundaries.

Raghu lost patience after staying 78 minutes at the crease, and he edged to the keeper off Vijaya Kumar after adding 27 runs in 18.4 overs with Goud facing most of the bowling. Later, Goud had a 51 valuable run partnership with Naidu, before he fell to Venugopala Rao after making 42 off 133 balls with four hits to the fence.

Binny was the next to go with the score reading 6 for 145. Naidu, with the help of old warhorse Sunil Joshi took the score to 175 in 72 overs without further damage. Play was stopped after 15 mandatory overs with the Karnataka second innings score reading 204 for the loss of seven wickets. Naidu remained not out on 53 off 155 balls with five boundaries.

MORE UNI XR/DB AY PM1808

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