It was an agonising day for the bowlers, spin and pace alike, at theMA Chidambaram stadium in Chennai on Monday
Staff Reporter20-Aug-2001It was an agonising day for the bowlers, spin and pace alike, at theMA Chidambaram stadium in Chennai on Monday. While MRF toiled hard,after having lost the toss and being put out on the field, the NewZealand A batsmen took their time milking the bowling. At the end ofthe day, the visiting team’s skipper Matthew Bell could be nothing butpleased, both for his 111 and for the side’s 303/4 off 101 overs.Having won a close first round encounter against Mumbai CricketAssociation, New Zealand A took no chances. On a wicket that can bestbe described as a featherbed, the spinners toiled ceaselessly withlittle reward. A look at the bowling analysis tells the tale – leftarm spinner Babloo Kumar 0/65 from 22 overs, Ashish Kapoor 0/68 from27 overs, Tanseer Jabbar 0/43 from 22 overs.Having said all this, it would be unfair to the extreme to takeanything away from the Kiwi batsmen. Having played out the best partof the day with extreme care, pushing, nudging and stroking the ballinto the gaps for ones and twos, the New Zealand batsmen really cashedin, just after tea, when the wicket was at its best and the bowlingtired.Earlier in the day, Mark Richardson (0) and Mathew Horne (4) missedout on a good chance to get some good scores as New Zealand A slumpedto 20/2. From there on however, the pair of Bell and Lou Vincent shutthe door on the MRF bowlers. Adding 156 runs for the third wicket, thepair blunted the bowling. Playing the sweep with aplomb, both Bell andVincent were positive without being aggressive. Bell in particular waskeen to play a long innings and outlasted Vincent (85 runs, 165 balls,11 fours). The departure of Vincent saw young Hamish Marshall have ago at the batting. Easily the most comfortable batsman at the crease,Marshall took the attack to the spinners, striking 11 boundaries andtwo sixes, one that clattered into the sight screen, on the way tomaking an unbeaten 84 (123 balls).It took a long while, 377 minutes in all at the wicket, before Bellwas dismissed on 111. Coming off nearly 300 balls, Bell’s knockincluded 11 hits to the fence. At the end of the day, Marshall hadJacob Oram (1 not out) for company.* Railways have a jolly good dayRailways are on track for a huge first innings lead at the end of dayone of their three-day MRF Buchi Babu tournament quarter-final againstthe National Cricket Academy at the Southern Railway Grounds inChennai on Monday. At close of play, the Railway men had reached 116-2after dismissing the NCA for a paltry 158.It was the left-arm spin of India discard Murali Kartik that played abig part in destroying the NCA wards in just 47.5 overs. An unbeaten81-run partnership between Dheeraj Sharma and Railways captain YereGoud then placed the Railways in a comfortable position at close. Goudand his team will be seeking to build on the solid foundations thatthey have laid when play resumes on TuesdayNCA got off to a good start with openers Vinayak Mane and GautamGambhir (21) putting on 59 runs off 14.5 overs. Thereafter batsmanafter batsman succumbed to Kartik. And those who slipped from hishands promptly fell to the two off-spinners in the Railways squad -Sanjay Satpathy and Kulamani Parida. Mane, who plays in the RanjiTrophy for Mumbai, top scored with 52 off 92 balls with seven foursand one six. Raza Ali who made 34 off 46 was the only other batsman tomake a mark in an innings that lacked direction.The 25-year-old Kartik returned impressive figures of 14.5-2-45-6while Satpathy and Parida claimed two wickets each.The Railways reply did not get to the best off starts with opener AmitPagnis guiding a delivery from left-arm seamer Salabh Srivastav intowicket-keeper Deep Das Gupta’s hands with just three runs on theboard. But No. 3 Dheeraj Sharma, who made a patient unbeaten 55 off139 balls, added 42 runs in the company of the other opener VineetSaxena before the latter was out.The arrival of 29-year-old Goud, the bulwark of the Railways battingfor many years now, then ensured that his team smoothly chugged alongto 116-2. Goud was batting on 38 off 63 balls with four fours and asix.* Bharadwaj ton rescues KSCA XIVijay Bharadwaj stood tall amongst the ruins scoring a defiant hundredfor Karnataka State Cricket Association XI in their quarter-finalmatch against the Cricket Association of Bengal in the MRF Buchi Babutournament at the Guru Nanak College Grounds in Chennai on Monday.KSCA XI were bowled out for 232 in 93.2 overs. By close of play CABhad scored six runs and lost the wicket of opening batsman Subhnoy Dasfor a duck.KSCA XI skipper Anil Kumble won the toss and elected to bat on a pitchwith some moisture in it. The start of the play was delayed by 30minutes because the umpires were not happy with the condition of thepitch.The tall and well-built 20-year-old fast bowler, Shib Sankar Paulcreated a flutter in the KSCA XI camp by striking two early blows. Thepace and bounce was what did the opening batsmen Mithun Beerala (4)and Rowland Barrington (8) in.Meanwhile, Laxmi Ratan Shukla claimed the wicket of Shyam Ponnapa (7).The young Deepak Chougule made just 12 before he was bowled by Paul.KSCA were in deep trouble at 64/5 when they lost Sunil Joshi (12), whofell to veteran left arm spinner Utpal Chaterjee.Bharadwaj and wicket-keeper batsman Rajashekar Shanbal set out torepair the innings and went on to play sensibly. Bharadwaj who playedwell to get to his nineties, played a couple of cut shots in the airpast the ropes at third-man fence to get to his hundred.Bharadwaj’s vigil came to an end when he chanced his arm against theoff spinner Sourashish Lahiri, to sky a catch to Shukla at deep midon. He made 105 runs off 237 balls with the help of 16 boundaries.Bharadwaj and Shanbal added 159 runs off 61.1 overs for the sixthwicket. In the space of 51 balls KSCA lost their remaining wickets,scoring just eight more runs. Lahiri was the pick of the bowlerstaking 4/52.CAB had to bat for the remaining 20 minutes in fading light as DavidJohnson and NC Iyyappa went hunting for early breaks. Iyyappagenerated good pace and beat the bat a few times. He had a confidentshout for lbw against Das turned down and claimed the wicket with thefollowing ball, given out lbw.The pitch is a cause of concern as it has started breaking up at thegood length area. Skipper Anil Kumble could prove a handful on thisunder-prepared pitch for the CAB batsmen led by Rohan Gavaskar.* Banks have a job on handA good performance by Jolly Rovers’ bowlers meant that All IndiaAssociated Banks could only score 247 runs in their first innings inthe MRF Buchi Babu tournament quarter-final between the two sides atthe Chemplast grounds in Chennai on Monday. Jolly Rovers were eightfor no loss at close of play.In the morning, Banks captain B Akhil won the toss and decided that hewould back his strong batting line-up to put up a huge total onboard, But things din’t go quite according to plan as opener DanielManohar, who also plays for Hyderabad, got out without troubling thescorers.The other opener Jyoti Yadav was in good nick and gaining inconfidence. After the loss of No.3 M Srinivas for 12, Yadav, who made52 off 135 balls and Pankaj Dharmani (39) began rebuilding theinnings. Next man Thilak Naidu smashed a quickfire 39 off 42 balls asthe Railways innings enjoyed their best period of the match.The rest of the batsman though couldn’t make any significantcontribution as the bankmen lost their way. Akhil made 25 off 79balls.For Jolly Rovers, opening bowler Ramkumar and Ganesh Kumar claimedthree wickets each.