TN take first innings lead

Chennai: Dinesh Karthik made up for his sloppy wicket-keeping with an effervescent 92 as Tamil Nadu took the first innings lead against Baroda in their Ranji Trophy Group B match on Sunday. However, the hosts' hopes of an outright victory is fast fading as Baroda have clawed their way back into the contest and dragging it towards a draw.

After wiping out Tamil Nadu's 71-run lead, Baroda were two runs ahead of the hosts (73 for one) at stumps on penultimate day . It looks like TN have to settle for three points -for their first innings lead -as weather continues to be dodgy, wicket has slowed down and only a maximum of 98 overs possible on Monday .

For their part, Baroda batsmen seem to have learnt from their first innings mistake. They applied themselves well in the middle, rotating the strike and playing the ball on its merit. Dhiren Mistry (29 not out), the only Baroda batsman who crossed half-century in the first innings, will resume the battle in the company of Aditya Waghmode (19 not out).

The match could produce a result if Baroda dare to set a target after playing out the first session, but skipper Yusuf Pathan didn't want to reveal his approach. “We will see what the score is at lunch and then decide what to do.

The way the batsmen are playing it seems the pitch no longer assists the bowlers and the weather could play spoilsport,“ said Yusuf.

Earlier, Tamil Nadu lost their final four wickets for just 18 runs to end their first essay at 233. Yusuf rolled his arm for a marathon spell (19.4-5-45-4) and ended up completing another six-wicket haul at M.A.

Chidambaram Stadium. He had done it here before in 2007.

B. Indrajith’s crucial knock of 38 came to an unexpected end when the ball rolled back to dislodge the bails after he played a soft-handed defence with a straight bat. Bhargav Bhatt was credited with snapping the match’s highest partnership — 83 between Dinesh and Indrajith.

An aggressive Dinesh pulled, reverse-swept, and used his feet well to inch closer to his second successive hundred only to be dismissed just eight runs short off the triple figure.

He was unlucky to have been dismissed lbw to a Yusuf delivery that struck the pad high and also clearly going down. R. Prasanna and R. Malolan paid the price for erratic shots, while Aswin Crist's caught behind signalled the end of TN's innings.

Dinesh said if the wicket has a bit in it on Monday then the game would turn on its head. “If they feel like declaring and they feel like they can get us out in the fourth innings, good luck to them. But, I am sure if given a target, we will go for it. Knowing our team, we will definitely look to go for the runs but, at the end of the day , it all depends on how they bat and how we bowl,“ he added.

SCORECARD (DAY 3) Baroda (1st innings): 162 Tamil Nadu (1st innings): 1.K.B.Arun Karthick lbw b Bhargav Bhatt 23, Abhinav Mukund b Yusuf Pathan 29, B.Indrajith b Bhargav Bhatt 38, B. Aparajith lbw b Yusuf Pathan 2, Dinesh Karthik lbw Yusuf Pathan 92, R. Prasanna lbw b Bhargav Bhatt 9, Malolan Rangarajan c Bhargav Bhatt b Yusuf Pathan 10, Aswin Crist c Pinal Shah b Yusuf Pathan 9, L. Balaji c Murtuja Vahora b Yusuf Pathan 9, Rahil Shah (run out) 0, Aushik Srinivas (not out) 1.

E Ex xt tr ra as s ( (b b5 5, , l lb b5 5, , w w1 1) ) 1 11 1. . T To ot ta al l ( (i in n 9 94 4. .4 4 o ov ve er rs s) ) 2 23 33 3. .

F Fo oW W: : 1-42, 2-57, 3-67, 4-150, 5168, 6-207, 7-215, 8-227, 9-228.

B Bo ow wl li in ng g: : Vahora 10-3-15-0, Pandya 6-3-9-0, Patel 10-1-360, Pathan 33.4-6-84-6, Bhatt 35-13-79-3.

Rituraj 4/74).

Bengal 252/7 (Laxmi Shukla 87*, Basu 56, Anureet 4/87) vs Railways 306.

G Gr ro ou up p C C: : Assam 247 & 31/4 (Yadav 3/5) vs Goa 406/9 dec (Desai 97, Kamat 60).

Hyderabad 258/1 (Reddy 138*, Ravi Teja 90*) vs Tripura 650/8 dec (Takawale 212, Murasingh 150, Abbas 132*).

Jammu & Kashmir 85 (Fallah 4/32) & 333/6 (Haroon 94, Bandeep 79) vs Maharashtra 401/9 dec (Khadiwale 87, Motwani 84, Mudhasir 5/87).

Kerala 214 (Manoharan 71, Bhatia 5/63) & 155 (Baby 43, Bipul 4-32) bt Himachal Pradesh 174 (Bipul 53, Padmanabhan 7/54) and 134 (Manoharan 5/43) by 61 runs.