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Laxman wages a lone battle for Hyderabad

Test discard Venkata Sai Laxman waged a lone battle, returning unbeaten on a battling unbeaten century, to give a semblance of respectability to the Hyderabad score on Thursday, the opening day of their in their Ranji Trophy quarter-final against Uttar Pradesh at Green Park, Kanpur.

At draw of stumps, Hyderabad were eight down for 246 with Laxman returning on 118 to continue his resistance into another day.

Laxman however had more than his fair share of fortune as he was grassed by Jyoti Yadav before lunch at gully and then many of his chancy aerial strokes fell in no-man's land.

He was also floored on either side of his century -- first by Ratnesh Mishra at mid-off and then by debutante wicketkeeper Pradeep Yadav. He however made the most of the chances, hitting a six off off-spinner Musi Raza, and 12 fours in his 242-ball, 357-minute stay at the crease.

Maybe, luck just favours the brave. But had the Uttar Pradesh fielders held any of these chances, the visitors would have surely been on the mat! As things stand now, the hosts will have to take the last two wickets as early as possible and then bat Hyderabad out of the match by taking a sizeable lead.

The Uttar Pradesh batting has surely been bolstered by the return of Mohd. Kaif while Hyderabad definitely missed the services of Mohammad Azharuddin.

The other highlight of the day was Ashish Winston Zaidi scalping his 200th Ranji victim in his 56th match. Zaidi became the first medium pacer and only the third Uttar Pradesh bowler to achieve the mark as he had the Hyderabad opener Nand Kishore caught by Kaif in his third over of the match. The other UP bowlers with 200-plus scalps in Ranji Trophy are left-arm spinner Rajinder Singh Hans (281) and former Test off-spinner Gopal Sharma (261).

For debutant medium pacer Ratnesh Mishra too, this day will be etched forever in his memoirs as he took four for 23 to make it a memorable day.

Scoreboard

Hyderabad (1st innings): Nand Kishore c Kaif b Zaidi 3, D Manohar c J Yadav b Mishra 28, V Laxman batting 118, V Pratap lbw b Srivastava 21, D Vinay Kumar b Kaif 24, P Satwalkar b Pandey 10, Arjun Yadav lbw b Mishra 13, Riaz Shaikh lbw b Mishra 3, V Raju b Mishra 4, NP Singh batting 5.

Extras (b 7, lb 10) 17. Total (for eight wickets, 90 overs): 246.

Fall of wickets: 1-20, 2-36, 3-92, 4-163, 5-178, 6-219, 7-225, 8- 239.

Bowling: A Zaidi 25-7-54-1; S Srivastava 16-3-53-1; R Mishra 13-5-23-4; M Raza 8-2-24-0; G Pandey 21-7-47-1; M Kaif 7-0-28-1.

The strong Punjab batting line-up came a cropper as Tamil Nadu took charge of the proceedings on the opening day of the Ranji Trophy quarterfinal match at the M A Chidambaram stadium, Mardas.

At draw of stumps on Thursday, after dismissing the visitors for 258, Tamil Nadu were 40 for no loss.

A dramatic post-lunch collapse saw the visitors crumble from 97 for 1 to be bowled out for 258.

The visitors, put into bat, were cruising along well, 104 for 2 at lunch after 28 overs. But returning from the siesta, Punjab saw a stirring reversal of fortunes as they lost four wickets in the second session for the addition of just 80 runs in 25 overs, to take tea at 184 for six. However a 67-minute, seventh-wicket defiance of 47 runs between Harminder Jugnu (34: 7x4) and Sandeep Sharma (23: 3x4), and then Sharandeep Singh (20) defied the hosts.

But the curtains were down on the Punjab essay once Sharandeep departed and R P Singh falling cheaply.

There were no demons in the pitch, and nothing but the Punjab batsmen themselves are to be blamed for the poor show. They failed to press home the advantage of making first use of the wicket.

Skipper Vikram Rathore (57: 7x4), opening the innings with Reetinder Singh Sodhi, put on 56 runs for the first wicket in the first 16 overs. Rathore then added 41 runs for the second wicket with left hander Youraj Singh, who collared the Tamil Nadu bowlers hitting 40 of his 44 runs off boundaries in a 116 minute stay at the wicket. Youraj added another 41 runs for the fourth wicket with southpaw Dinesh Mongia (33) but once the duo departed, the collapse followed.

Scoreboard

Punjab (1st innings): Vikram Rathore c Mahesh b Kapoor 57, Reetinder Singh Sodhi c R Paul b Bhatia 22, Youraj Singh c R Paul b Kumaran 44, Pankaj Dharmani c Paul b Kapoor 3, Dinesh Mongia c Sriram b Mahesh 33, Sanjay Kumar c Sharath b Kumaran 8, HS Jugnu lbw Gokulakrishnan 34, Sandeep Sharma c R Paul b Mahesh 23, Sharandeep Singh c Ramesh b Sriram 20, Harbhajan Singh not out 3, RP Singh c sub (Medappa) b Mahesh 1.

Extras (lb 5, nb 5) 10. Total (all out, 79.3 overs) 258.

Fall of wickets: 1-56, 2-97, 3-104, 4-145, 5-162, 6-178, 7-225, 8-254, 9-254.

Bowling: Kumaran 17-4-53-2; Mahesh 17.3-1-55-3; Goukulakrishnan 13-1-45-1; Bhatia 7-0-28-1; Kapoor 18-3-68-2; Sriram 7-4-4-1.

Tamil Nadu (1st innings): S Sriram batting 20, S Ramesh batting 18.

Extras (nb 2) 2. Total (no loss, 9 overs) 40.

Bowling: Sharma 3-0-22-0; RP Singh 3-0-15-0; H Singh 2-1-1-0; RS Sodhi 1-0-4-0.