Andhra hold advantage as match hangs in balance

Despite a late collapse, Andhra were having the better of the exchanges at the end of the second day's play of their Ranji Trophy South Zone clash against Karnataka at Belgaum. Having skittled out the home team for just 139 in the morning, Andhra progressed to 189/8 in their second knock by stumps, assisted by half centuries from Y Venugopal Rao and LN Prasad Reddy.

Karnataka resumed at 90/4 with their last recognised pair of Thilak Naidu and B Akhil at the crease. In the day's fourth over Naidu was caught off finger spinner Watekar for 28, which turned out to be the topscore of the innings. Akhil fell four runs later to leave the hosts at 101/6. The tail frustrated Andhra for another hour and a half without making much headway in terms of run scoring as the innings sputtered to an end in the 56th over. Mediumpacer KS Sahabuddin picked up three more wickets today to end with figures of 6/63.

Andhra went in to bat shortly before lunch with a first innings lead of 56 in the kitty. Skipper Amit Pathak and Y Gnaneswara Rao both fell cheaply to Mansur Ali Khan either side of the interval as Andhra slid to 24/2. Opener Reddy (55) and Venugopala Rao (82), brother of Gnaneswara Rao, now came together in a 135 run third wicket stand that appeared to have given the visitors a stranglehold.

But both were removed in successive overs by Santosh Vadiaraj to alter the complexion of the game in a twinkling. In a game of seesawing fortunes, Dodda Ganesh tore apart the lower order and Andhra went into stumps at 189/8, having lost their last six wickets for 30 runs. With the visitors holding an overall lead of 245 runs and two wickets still in hand, Karnataka's batsmen face the prospect of a challenging fourth innings runchase on a none too friendly wicket, although they have plenty of time in hand.