Thaindian News

Chennai, Nov 26 (IANS) As expected, with weather affecting the proceedings, it has boiled down to a battle for the first innings lead as Tamil Nadu declared at 335 for four and Railways were on 40 without loss at the end of third day’s play in the Ranji Trophy Elite Group A match here Friday.

Resuming at their overnight score of 244 for four, Tamil Nadu added another 91 runs on another truncated day before declaring, and the Railways openers Faiz Fazal (20) and Vairamudi Cheluvaraj (17) batted with understandable circumspection on a day when only 33 overs were bowled.

Earlier, overnight batsmen Abhinav Mukund and Subramaniam Badrinath, both of whom had completed their respective centuries on Wednesday, went for quick runs and both made their exit and it eventually led to declaration soon after.

Mukund made 131 (262b, 16 x 4) while Badrinath was out on 149 (315b, 16 x 4). Tamil Nadu batted on for a few more overs before closing their innings.

With the game going into the final day, Tamil Nadu would be hoping to pick up first innings points, but the weather could yet have a final say on the morrow.

Scoreboard:

Tamil Nadu (1st Innings): Srikkanth Aniruda c Fazal b Yadav 1; Abhinav Mukund b Tokas 131; KB Arun Karthick c Rawat b Yadav 10; Subramaniam Badrinath c Tokas b Anureet 149; Dinesh Karthik (not out) 17; Rajagopal Satihsh (not out) 1. Extras (b-2, W-4, nb-20): 26. Total (for 4 wkts decl, 103 overs): 335.
Fall of wickets: 1-5, 2-36; 3-291; 4-329.
Bowling: Anureet Singh 23-6-62-1, Jai Prakash Yadav 20-6-65-2, Vikas Tokas 16-0-72-1, Sanjay Bangar 12-4-28-0, Murali Karthik 24-1-65-0, Marripuri Suresh 3-0-21-0, Prashant Awasthi 5-0-20-0.

Railways (1st innings): Faiz Fazal (batting) 20; Vairamudi Cheluvaraj (batting) 17. Extras (nb-3): 3. Total (for no loss, 17 overs): 40.
Bowling: Lakshmipathy Balaji 4-0-18-0; Chandrasekar Ganapathy 5-1-7-0; Murthy Prabhu 5-2-11-0; Yo Mahesh 3-0-4-0.