Ramkumar, Ravichandra claim second day honours

Resuming on 284/9, the Tamil Nadu Under-25 side managed to post 310 in their Coca Cola Cup encounter against Hyderabad Under-25 at Bangalore. The second day's play saw the last Tamil Nadu pair push the score past the three hundred run mark before being dismissed. Ghouse Baba with 6/100 was the pick of the bowlers, but the fact that he was largely unsupported by his teammates saw Tamil Nadu post a more than handy score.

Needing 302 to take the first innings lead, Hyderabad opener Radhakrishna was dismissed in just the 9th over of the innings. Coming in at the fall of the first wicket, Anirudh Singh managed to steady the ship. While he got his eye in, he saw the other opener, Aditya Agarwal (22), being stumped by Raju off the bowling of Ramkumar.

Although there was a brief period of consolidation where Anirudh Singh and Sanjay Patel added 41 runs, no one was able to stand up to Ramkumar for any length of time. As Ramkumar picked more wickets, the Hyderabad innings faltered. Anirudh Singh departed for 57 when he was trapped LBW by Ramkumar.

>From this point on, a vital innings from Ravi Chandra saw Hyderabad save face in a big way. Refusing to throw away his wicket, Ravi Chandra played a lone hand in resurrecting his team's fortunes. On the way to an unbeaten 91 out of a team total of 262, Ravi Chandra enjoyed the company of as many as five batsmen.

Sanjay Patel (46) was the only one to play any sort of supporting role. Obaidullah, Srinivas Reddy and Ghouse Baba failed to make it to double figures and were all scalped by Ramkumar.

When stumps was called, Hyderabad still needed 40 runs to secure a first innings lead. With just 2 wickets in hand, they will find it extremely difficult to go the distance. If the first day belonged to Ghouse Baba (6/100) then the second belonged to Ramkumar who had pickings of 6/71. Ravi Chandra, waging a lone battle with an unbeaten 91 to his name, holds the key for Hyderabad in what should be an interesting first session of play on the third and final day of this encounter.