Akshath Reddy’s fourth century this season (133, 17x4, 1x6) and Syed Ahmed Quadri’s (73, 7x4, 2x6) revived Hyderabad, reeling at 118 for three on Friday morning, to close the third day of its Ranji Trophy group C match against Jharkhand at 377 for seven, 30 short of a follow-on.
The first hour didn’t bode well for Hyderabad’s overnight batsmen especially when facing Varun Aaron’s firepower. One snorter from the strapping speedster rattled Hanuma Vihari, who fended off the rising ball to stumper Ishan Kishan.
Ravi Teja seemed to have sized up the paceman before he dabbed one back to Aaron, who was not only quick on his feet but showed surprising agility for a man his size, leaping to the front to seize the chance.
If the batting hitherto had proved brittle, Akshath soldiered on nonetheless, with some support from Ibrahim Khaleel. The latter, however, fell at the stroke of lunch, beaten all ends up by leggie Samar Quadri.
Attacking and adventurous, Akshath braved a barrage of bouncers from Aaron, including one that hit his helmet, which needed changing.
The opener’s on-driven six off Shahbaz Nadeem was not only cheeky but picked cleanly and against the spin. When the boundary line seemed hard to breach, with fielding stops close to the ropes commonplace, Akshath and Ahmed Quadri ran ones and twos, rotating the strike well.
Akshath’s 178 ball, 281-minute vigil for three figures not only took him to the top of Hyderabad’s batting table, but steadied the shaky ship, racked by reversals thrice in the morning session. With Ahmed Quadri, he put on 114 for the fifth wicket, the most productive partnership for the visitors, which shifted the balance of power their way.
An easy single brought up Ahmed Quadri’s half century when the bell rang for tea. The two were separated when Nadeem exacted revenge, beating and bowling Akshath round the legs. Not much later, Ahmed Quadri, pinned to the backfoot by a climbing Ritu Raj delivery, played it straight to Prakash Munda at gully.
The scores: Jharkhand — 1st innings: 556 for nine declared.
Hyderabad — 1st innings: Tanmay Agarwal lbw b Aaron 6, Akshath Reddy b Nadeem 133, G. Hanuma Vihari c Ishan Kishan b Aaron 41, Ravi Teja c & b Aaron 8, Ibrahim Khaleel b Samar Quadri 31, Ahmed Quadri c Munda b Ritu Raj 73, Ashish Reddy (batting) 54, Akash Bhandari lbw b Ritu Raj 4, C.V. Milind (batting) 5; Extras (b-12, lb-2, nb-7, w-1): 22; Total (for seven wickets in 104 overs): 377.
Fall of wickets: 1-7, 2-86, 3-118, 4-185, 5-299, 6-348, 7-368.
Jharkhand bowling: Ritu Raj Singh 22-4-83-2, Varun Aaron 23-2-98-3, Shahbaz Nadeem 29-3-83-1, Samar Quadri 27-5-84-1, Kaushal Singh 2-0-13-0, Saurabh Tiwary 1-0-2-0.
