The KSCA Coca Cola Under 25 encounter between hosts Karnataka andAndhra at the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore was evenly poised atstumps on the second day
Sankhya Krishnan06-Oct-2000The KSCA Coca Cola Under 25 encounter between hosts Karnataka andAndhra at the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore was evenly poised atstumps on the second day. Andhra were leading by 222 runs with onesecond innings wicket in hand as the match looks to be heading for anoutright result on the third and final day tomorrow.Earlier in the morning Karnataka collapsed to just 167 in their firstinnings after resuming at their overnight score of 97/1. The bulk ofthe damage was done by seamer Balasaraswathi Reddy who claimed 6/61 tohelp Andhra to a first innings lead of 53. Karnataka opener ShyamPonnappa failed to add to his overnight score of 58, giving BalajiKrishna his sole wicket of the innings.The other not out batsman AR Mahesh did manage to advance his scorefrom 23 to 38 before Reddy had him caught behind. Of the rest only SSudhindra showed some inclination to stay at the wicket, making 23 inone and a quarter hours stay at the crease. MN Vikram complementedReddy’s efforts with a three wicket bag of his own.In reply Andhra got off to a dreadful start losing their first fivewickets with just 19 runs on the board, opening bowlers NC Ayyappa andSunil Kumar scalping all five wickets between them. Middle order batArjun Kumar in association with the tail sparked a recovery thatlifted Andhra to 169/9 at stumps. Arjun was undefeated on a priceless56 (87 balls, 5 fours) while Ayyappa returned figures of 5/44 as thematch heads to an interesting climax.