Hyderabad cruise to a facile win over Indian Airlines

Hyderabad Cricket Association had little difficulty in overcoming Indian Airlines' challenge to score a facile 6 wicket win at the Gymkhana ground in the Moin-ud-Dowlah Gold Cup Tournament in Hyderabad on Saturday.

Chasing 206 for victory, HCA started relatively sedately with openers M Srinivas (10) and Venugopal (55) adding 29 runs in 7.3 overs. Then Anirudh Singh (33) joined Venugopal to forge a 63 run second wicket stand in 11 overs. After this Santosh Yadav and Venugopal put on 40 runs in 8 overs. Venugopal's departure, brought Youraj Singh to the crease and in the company of Santosh took HCA to victory with 7.3 overs to spare.

Earlier, opting to bat, Indian Airlines started with a hiccup when they lost skipper J Arun Kumar (7) in the fourth over. Then O Singh (8) followed him with only 17 on board in 6.1 overs. VVS Laxman (2) also did not last long. But the middle order and lower order kept the battle going for Indian Airlines through contributions from Kiran Kumar(32), Shafiq Khan (28), Ishan Ghanda (22) and Doda Ganesh (39). All of them failed to capitalise on the starts they got as Indian Airlines ended with 205 for the loss of seven wickets on board in their 50 overs.