Kerala's woes continue as they slump to 69/4

Vanka Pratap in the process of giving Hyderabad the upper hand with a timely century, put to shade a good bowling performance by Kerala seamer Tinu Yohannan (6 for 177). Such was the dominance of Hyderabad that they declared at 489 for 9 well into the second day of their South Zone Ranji Trophy match at the Nuclear Fuel Complex Ground at Hyderabad on Thursday. Kerala at stumps were tottering at 69 for 4.

Resuming where he left off the previous evening, Vanka Pratap (128) went on to complete his century after a 317 minute stay at the crease. His overnight partner Vinay Kumar (71) was not far behind, reaching his half century off 85 balls. After forging a 146 run fourth wicket stand with Vanka Pratap, Vinay departed caught by Ananthapadmanabhan off Ramprakash. Then Vanka Pratap fell leg before to Yohannan after adding 45 run for the fifth wicket with PR Satwalkar. Stumper M Srinivas joined Satwalkar and put on 56 runs for the sixth wicket.

After the fall of Satwalkar, the Hyderabad innings folded up with the addition of 41 runs. In reply Kerala made a circumspect start with the openers V Girilal (22) and MP Sorab (24) adding 48 runs. But disaster struck Kerala when former Indian spinner Venkatapathy Raju was introduced into the attack. Raju drew first blood for Hyderabad in the 18th over when he trapped Girilal in front. Two balls later he sent back Sorab in much the similar manner. Kerala's woes were not to end there as Raju in his very next over picked up the wicket of S Shankar (0) caught by Vinay Kumar. Kanwaljit Singh joined in the act and in his very first over trapped Sunil Oasis (6) leg before.