Hosts come good with facile wins in Vijay Merchant Trophy

All the three teams Tamil Nadu, Hyderabad and Karnataka fully utilised the advantage of playing on home turf to score convincing wins over Kerala, Goa and Andhra respectively in the recent round of matches in the Under-16 South Zone league Vijay Merchant Trophy tournament.

A tally of nine wickets in the match by Rajesh helped Tamil Nadu team scored an innings and 11 run win over Kerala at the MA Chidambaram stadium in Chennai on Saturday. Having won the toss on the opening day, Kerala opted to bat and were shot out for a paltry 78. Rajesh ripped through the visitors' line up ending with figures of 7 for 17 while the other three wickets were shared by Varun, Raina and Satish Kumar.

In response, Tamil Nadu took a massive 202 run lead thanks to 160 run fourth wicket stand between KDK Kartik (99) and M Muthupandey (79). Tamil Nadu skipper Vasudeva Das declared the innings at 280 for 7. Kartik who missed a well deserved century by a run, was at the crease for 213 minutes and faced 192 balls while finding the boundaries on eight occasions.

Kerala's batting woes continued in their second innings and were shot out for 191. Only four batsmen JS Kurien (26), skipper NJ John (59), PR Prem (50) and P Prasanth (18) reached the double figures. The wickets were shared allround with Vasudeva Das (3 for 53) and Varun (3 for 11) being the pick.

In the second match of the tournament at the MJWSC Ground in Bangalore, Karnataka had to sweat a bit even as they scored an innings and 2 run win over Andhra on Saturday. Opting to bat, Andhra were bundled out for just 164 runs by Chetan Williams (6 for 30) and Chauhan (4 for 64).

In reply, Karnataka declared their first innings at 370 for 9, a lead of 206 runs. The Karnataka batsmen were in good form with opener PT Trishul (70), MK Manjunath (76) and GVK Agarwal (78) making the bulk of the scoring. Andhra in their second innings fell short by two runs to make the home side bat again, scoring 204 runs. Chauhan and Williams were among the wickets again taking three apiece. Moinuddin also ended taking three wickets.

The last match of the present round of South Zone matches saw Hyderabad defeat Goa by ten wickets at the Nuclear Fuel Complex Ground in Hyderabad. Having to score just 69 for a win on the final day, Hyderabad openers SP Peter (42) and Mohd Imran (30) accomplished the task off 15.4 overs.

Earlier on the opening day, Opting to bat the hosts, Hyderabad, amassed 355 on the board. PS Niranjan (75) was the top scorer while Goa's SS Shetty (5 for 119) and SB Yadav (3 for 122) shared the bowling honours. In reply the Goan batting failed to take off and were bundled out for just 130 with the top scorer being Yadav (27).

Following on, Goa fared a bit better scoring 294 with Yadav again coming to the team's rescue with a timely century. During his 136 minute stay at the crease, Yadav faced 128 balls for his 102 which was studded with 14 fours and one six.