John causes Tamil Nadu collapse

At 180 for three, Tamil Nadu seemed to be cruising along when Kerala's NJ John caused a sharp collapse on the opening day of their three day Cooch Behar Trophy South Zone league match at the Medical college ground in Thiruvananthapuram on Wednesday. John took four wickets as Tamil Nadu slid to 212 for seven before an unbroken eighth wicket partnership of 32 runs off 9.1 overs pushed the score to 244 by stumps when play was called off about ten minutes before before the scheduled close due to heavy rain. The downpour rendered the ground unfit for play on the second day which was abandoned on Thursday. The decision to call off the day's play was taken after lunch when the umpires had made a second inspection.

The start of play was delayed for 140 minutes because of the dampness in the pitch. Put in to bat, Tamil Nadu lost R Sainath (18) at 31 but K Vasudevadoss (35) and R Prasanna (36) steadied the boat with a second wicket partnership of 64 runs off 21.2 overs. Both batsmen fell in the space of two overs but then V Kudawla (45) and Aditya Srikkanth (41) added 80 runs for the fourth wicket off 16 overs to put Tamil Nadu in a position of some strength. This was when John struck. He had both Kudawla and Srikkanth leg before and then he bowled skipper S Vidyuth (24) and T Dushyanth (0). John finished the day with the splendid figures of 9-1-13-4. E Suresh (14) and wicketkeeper KKD Karthik (12) were in the midst of a rescue act when the day's play was halted.