Another watchful knock by crisis-man Sachin Baby (87 batting) and his partner Akshay Chandran’s new-found consistency (57 batting) put Kerala in a position of strength at the end the second day’s play in the Ranji Trophy match against Andhra at the Dr. P.V.G. Raju ACA Sports Complex stadium here on Saturday.
Baby and Akshay added 134 runs for the unbroken fourth-wicket partnership as Kerala, in reply to Andhra’s first innings total of 272, reached 258 for three at stumps.
Stand-in captain Baby, after expertly marshalling his resources to restrict Andhra in the first innings, wore down the inexperienced attack with a mixture of adventurous strokes and water tight tight defence.
At the start, Baby waited to get his eye in.
He saw off the faster bowlers, scoring the occasional boundary when they erred. The captain was more at home against the spinners.
Baby came down the track to hit the spinners against the spin and leaned back to cut them for boundaries as he changed gears to race to his fifty. There was no help for the Andhra bowlers from the wicket and Baby prospered. The Kerala captain manipulated the field to increase the scoring rate towards the end of the day.
Akshay played the supporting role to perfection as Baby played the enforcer in the fourth wicket stand which took the game away from Andhra.
The left- hander was patient and curbed his natural attacking game and played the ball on merit. Akshay converted the good start to compile a deserving half-century.
Akshay came in when Andhra had pulled things back after dismissing both the settled batters Rohan Kunnummal (61) and Krishna Prasad (43) who had added 86 runs for the second wicket.
Krishna Prasad was not given any run for a while as Andhra choked him with a packed off-side field.
The batter tried to break out of the shackles and was caught in the deep.
Kunnummal played with wristy elegance but his inherent weakness to dominate brought his downfall as he wasted another good start.
Earlier, Basil Thampi and N.P. Basil flushed out the Andhra tailenders in just under seven overs to leave Ricky Bhui stranded on 87.
The scores:
Andhra — 1st innings: K. Revanth Reddy c Akshay b Thampi 0, K. Maheep Kumar c Prasad b Vaisakh 81, Ashwin Hebber c Azharuddeen b Akshil 28, G. Hanuma Vihari c Basil b Vaisakh 24, Ricky Bhui (not out) 87, Karan Shinde c Azharuddeen b Akshay 43, S.K. Rasheed c & b Thampi 0, Shoaib Mohammed Khan c Baby b Jalaj 5, Manish Golamaru c Salman b Thampi 1, Girinath Reddy c Azharuddeen b N.P. Basil 0, Satyanarayana lbw Thampi 0; Extras: (1b-2, n-1): 3; Total (in 96.4 overs): 272
Fall of wickets: 1-8, 2-59, 2-133, 4-144, 5-248, 6-251, 7-260, 8-265, 9-266.
Kerala bowling: Thampi 18.4-5-48-4, N.P. Basil 20-6-51-1, Vaisakh 24-2-78-2, Akhil 16-1-50-1 Jalaj 10.3-2-28-1, Akshay 7-0-15-1.
Kerala — 1st innings: Rohan Kunnummal c Rasheed b Shoaib 61, Jalaj Saxena c Aswin b Raju 4, Krishna Prasad c Girinath b Manish 43, Sachin Baby (batting) 87, Akshay Chandran (batting) 57; Extras (b-5, w-1): 6; Total (for three wkts. in 81 overs): 258
Fall of wickets: 1-8, 2-94, 3-124.
Andhra bowling: Girinath 14-2-42-0, Raju 15-2-53-1, Ashwin 9-1-25-0, Manish 22-2-67-1, Shoaib 20-0-62-1, Karan 1-0-4-0.
Published - February 18, 2024 12:27 am IST
