Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy: Hyderabad, Tamil Nadu get off to winning starts

Visakhapatnam: Tamil Nadu opened their campaign in the South Zone Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy T20 tournament with an easy seven-wicket win over Andhra Pradesh at Dr Y S Rajasekhara Reddy ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium here on Monday. Dinesh Karthik guided Tamil Nadu home with a quickfire 57 off just 28 balls (nine fours and two sixers) with 32 balls to spare after the bowlers had restricted the opposition to 119 for 7 in 20 overs.

Opting to bat, Andhra was in trouble in the very first over, losing opener Ashwin Hebbar for a duck, castled by K. Vignesh. G Hanuma Vihari (5) fell to Athisayaraj Davidson soon after to leave the home side at 6 for 2. Ricky Bhui (25) and Ravi Teja (19) rebuilt with a 44-run stand but once they were separated, the rest of the Andhra batsmen struggled to get going. In another match, Hyderabad overcame Kerala by 10 runs. Ambati Rayudu scored an unbeaten 52, while Ravi Kiran shone with the bat with figured of 3/28.

Brief scores:

Andhra Pradesh 117/7 in 20 overs (Ricky Bhui 25, K. Vignesh 2 /17) lost to Tamil Nadu 122/3 in 14.4 overs (Dinesh Karthik 57, B. Aparajith 28*). Hyderabad 168/5 in 20 overs (Ambati Rayudu 52*, Akshath Reddy 34, Jalaj Saxena 2/28) bt Kerala 158/7 in 20 overs (Sachin Baby 79, Ravi Kiran 3/28). Karnataka 172/4 in 20 overs (Mayank Agarwal 55, Darshan Misal 3/27) bt Goa 123/8 in 20 overs (Sagun Kamat 28, Abhimanyu Mithun 2/13).