Venugopal Rao leads from the front for Andhra

After piling up 394 in the first innings Andhra had Karnataka struggling on 83/3 to hold the whiphand at stumps on the second day of their Cooch Behar Trophy South Zone league match at the Visakhapatanam Steel Plant stadium on Thursday.

Resuming on the second day at 281 for 6, Venugopal Rao lost Mohd Faiq with the score at 294. Manoj Sai joined Venugopal in the middle and the two put on a useful 40 runs for the eight wicket. Venugopal was the chief scorer during the partnerships that ensued on the second day and before long proceeded to complete a well deserved century. Playing a typical captain's knock, he took the team nearly past the 400 run mark, when he himself fell. With the score at 394, Venugopal was the last man to be dismissed after a fighting 130 off 223 balls.

In reply, Karnataka started in a circumspect manner with openers Sudir Rao (22) and Bharat Chipli (18) adding 37 runs in 18.2 overs. Rao was the first to go, when he was castled by GS Rao. Then Deepak Chougule joined Chipli, but Chipli himself did not last long. He departed after being caught by Manoj Sai off Venugopal Rao with only 56 runs on the board. This brought in skipper C Raghu to the centre and in the company of Chougule he took the score to 75. GS Rao pushed Karnataka further on the back foot when he shattered the defences of Chougule. But Raghu and AK Bafna saw Karnataka safely through to stumps without any further hiccups.