Santh, Yousaf share honours on shortened first day

The Goa under-19 team had to struggle all the way in the face of a good bowling performance by Kerala and were perched precariously at the end of the first day with only 71 runs on the board while losing eight wickets along the way in the Cooch Behar Trophy South Zone league match at the Medical College Ground in Trivandrum on Tuesday.

Play started only at 1 pm due to overnight rains and put in to bat, Goa made a disastrous start losing opener SS Sandesh (1) in the seventh over of the day. S Santh who picked up the wicket of Sandesh struck again, trapping SD Saheel (7) in front of the stumps. His partner TA Yousaf then removed the other opener AA Swapnil (9). Goa were in dire straits with three of the top order batsmen dismissed and with only 25 runs on the board. But Santh was not finished and he struck once more when he had SK Suraj (4) caught behind.

Goa's innings was in real disarray, when Yousaf shattered the defence of KK Sagun (4) with only 33 runs on the board. Then R David (20) and RA Aditya (14) struggled along to take the Goa innings past the 50-run mark in the 20th over of the innings. But in the very next over Aditya departed, offering a return catch to NK Aneesh.

NN Gautham then gave David some company, while taking the score to 71 before he was trapped leg before by Aneesh. David himself did not last long. Seven balls later, he struggled to reach his crease and was run out with no runs added to the score. Almost at once, Goa found some help by way of bad light which put an end to the proceedings. At this stage, Santh had taken three wickets for 17 while Yousaf had two for 23.