da bwin： With a dogged 91 run partnership for the 9th wicket with southpaw[Fatima Reddy] the Hyderabad skipper Santosh Yadav saved the match forHyderabad, and denying hosts Andhra the most important first inningslead
Blessington Thomas19-Oct-1999With a dogged 91 run partnership for the 9th wicket with southpaw[Fatima Reddy] the Hyderabad skipper Santosh Yadav saved the match forHyderabad, and denying hosts Andhra the most important first inningslead. Hyderabad’s top-order batsmen threw away their wickets with someatroshes strokes when the team needed them to stay put at the placidbattin track at the ECIL gound.Hyderabad resumed its innings from the overnight score of 66 for 1 in43 overs. First to go this morning was Karthik Ramaswamy attempting aneedless run, Things looked settled when left-hander Anirudh Singhand Aditya Agarwal were batting. A sudden rush of blood saw theformer holed outby Shahabuddin at square-leg when he tried to sweepBalaji Krishna Singh until then he was batting beautifully and lookedlike he would bat through the day. He was soon followed by Agarwalwhen also tried to sweep Venugopala Rao to be gleefully caught by tallShahabuddin at square-leg, A terrible mis-understanding saw ArjunYadav being run out after Santosh Yadav called for a run and latersending the batsman by the time Arjun could regain the crease thedamage was already done. Just about 10 minutes to lunch Hyderabadlost yet another wicket this time it of Mohd. Faiz Ahmed clean bowledby Venugopala Rao.At Lunch Hyderabad were struggling to avoid the disgrace of Follow-On.from a position of strength at 90/1 they lost 5 wickets for theaddision of 39 runs, to read lunch time score of 129 for 6 in 78overs. Santosh on [ 5 ] and Amresh Kumar on [ 0 ].After lunch both Santosh and Amresh tried to occupy the crease as longas possible, but the visitors had other ideas of dislodging the pairin quick time to make sure they get a first innings lead. HoweverAndhra met with the success of dislodging the wickets of Amresh Kumaroff the bowling of Sahahabuddin operating from the Pavilion end at 145for 7 in the 89.1 st over.The last recognised batsman in Mohd. Ghouse joined Santosh, but Ghousedisappointed every one present here with an atrocious shot off skipperRam Mohan to be caught at mid-on [a skier]. At this point defeat wasstaring at the face of Hyderabad with another minimum of 30 overs tobe gone in the match and the score being 146 for 8 in 92.2 overs.But skipper Santosh Yadav found an able partner [ FATIMA REDDY ] tosupport him and to frustrate the opposition of any further success.these two batted through till Tea time with the score being 182/8 in105 overs, still 30 minutes of play and a minimum of 15 mandatoryovers to be played.In the last 60 minutes Andhra bowled 18 overs, in the penultimate over[ 16.3rd ] the gallant innings of Fatima Reddy came to an end when hewas adjudged lbw by umpire Narasimha off the bowling of VenugopalaRao. The match was still in balance as the lesser known lastHyderabad batsman [ Nagaraju ] walked in to play the remaing 3 ballsof Venugopapa Rao’s over with six fielders crouching him around,Nagaraju managed to play the first ball with the bat and well-left thenext two to end the penultimate over of the match, at the other endSantosh Yadav faced the last 6 crucial balls which seperated both theteams from 5 and 3 points at the fall of a wicket.However, Santosh played the over with ease much to the delight ofspectators and of course the host team members. Santosh was at thewicket for 268 minutes and 69.4 overs of which he faced 217 balls andremained unconquered for a Match Saving 68 with the aid of 8 hits tothe boundry line. Fatima Reddy’s tenure of 42.1 overs at the wicketin 152 minutes got him 27 runs in facing 116 balls with a lone 4. andhis association with Santosh Yadav contributed 91 runs.