South Zone u-25 tournament: Unbeaten 140 by Fayaz

An unbeaten 140 by Ranji player KA Fayaz helped Andhra to score 324 for five wickets at close of play on the opening day of the three day KSCA Coca Cola South Zone (under-25) cricket tournament in Bangalore on Monday.

Winning the toss, Andhra lost LNP Reddy (14) at 23. He edged medium pacer Sunil Kumar to wicketkeeper Rajasekhar Shanbal in the sixth over of the innings. But the other opening batsman KNV Krishna Mohan (40) and Fayaz added 74 runs for the second wicket off 21 overs. Krishna Mohan then edged a ball from Karnataka captain T Aditya to Shanbal. Balaji K Singh (4) did not last long and when Gnaneswara Rao (10) fell, Andhra were shakily placed at 124 for four.

Fayaz and skipper I Srinivas (68) however set Andhra on the road to recovery with a fifth wicket association of 164 runs off 37.3 overs. Before Srinivas was caught by Shanbal off Ashwath, he had faced 120 balls and hit ten fours.

The recovery process was maintained with Fayaz and H Vatekar (22 not out) adding 36 runs in an unbroken sixth wicket partnership of 36 runs off 11.4 overs before play was called off, about an hour before the scheduled close due to bad light. By close, Fayaz, who had batted 271 minutes and faced 210 balls had hit 14 fours and two sixes, both off spinner N Aswath. For Karnataka, Sunil Kumar took two for 49 while Ashwath, who was expensive, captured two for 104 off 21 overs.