Tamil Nadu seal domination of Uttar Pradesh

Tamil Nadu chose not to enforce the follow on after a solid batting display was backed by a good bowling performance. Resuming on 599/4, Tamil Nadu declared their innings closed after they had reached 696/5. Sridharan Sharath playing confidently reached his double hundred off 320 balls. Adding another 5 runs to that mark, Sharath was run out.

After a side has made nearly seven hundred runs for the loss of just five wickets, one would think the wicket was good for batting. However, the wicket certainly was not good for Uttar Pradesh. The Tamil Nadu bowlers all plugged away, chipping in and sharing the wickets as Uttar Pradesh were dismissed for 228.

Only S Shukla in the middle of the innings resisted the Tamil Nadu attack. He helped himself to 102 runs, a large percentage of the Uttar Pradesh total. The fact that the next highest score was 26 from young medium pacer Mrithyunjay Tripathi spoke volumes of the inability of the Uttar Pradesh batsmen to deal with the Tamil Nadu bowling.

Tamil Nadu leading by over four hundred runs chose not to enforce the follow on. Whether there was a need to get more batting practice after almost all batsmen had made runs in the first innings is a question only the Tamil Nadu captain can answer.