Another century by Suman

Hyderabad opening batsman T Suman scored his second successive century in the competition as his side did well in scoring 262 for five off 101 overs at stumps on the first day of their South Zone Cooch Behar Trophy match against Andhra at the Ukku stadium, Visakhapatnam on Tuesday.

Opting to bat first, Hyderabad met with an early setback when Avinash Pai was out to the second ball of the match, sent down by Appala Raju. Suman and Shashank Nag however initiated the recovery process by adding 76 runs for the second wicket off 29.4 overs before the latter was bowled by G Shankara Rao for 27. Suman found another valuable partner in AT Rayudu and the two shared a third wicket stand of 150 runs off 52.2 overs. Suman who had scored a century against Goa last week was finally third out at 228 in the 83rd over. For his 121, the opener batted 291 minutes, faced 251 balls and hit seven fours and three sixes. Rayudu was out in the following over, caught behind by wicketkeeper Manoj Sai off Md Faiq for 74. He batted a shade under three hours, faced 169 balls and hit eleven fours and a six. In the same over Md Faiq also had Raghuram Janak caught behind without any addition to the score. But Arjun Yadav (11) and Ibrahim Khaleel (22) weathered the storm by adding 33 runs off 17 overs for the unbroken sixth wicket when stumps were drawn.