da brwin： After a rather innocuous outing in the last round against Kerala,Hyderabad came up against a rather rock solid Tamil Nadu batting lineup in their South Zone Ranji Trophy match at the Neuclear Fuel Complexground at Hyderabad on Wednesday
Natarajan Sriram15-Nov-2000After a rather innocuous outing in the last round against Kerala,Hyderabad came up against a rather rock solid Tamil Nadu batting lineup in their South Zone Ranji Trophy match at the Neuclear Fuel Complexground at Hyderabad on Wednesday. Helped by a fine century by openerRajat Bhatia, the visitors were 273 for 2 when stumps were drawn onthe opening day.Opting to bat, Tamil Nadu were provided with a commendable 184 runopening stand by Sridharan Sriram (98) and Rajat Bhatia (132 not out)in 51.4 overs. Bhatia was more the sedate partner prefering to playthe sheet anchor role. The hosts though toiling long and hard wereunsuccessful as the duo took the Tamil Nadu into lunch with the scoreline reading 125/0. The two stayed on till late afternoon and beforelong took the partnership to nearly 200.Just two runs short of a well deserved century, Sriram became thefirst casualty for the day in the 52nd over. Sriram found himselfstruggling to regain his crease as the wicketkeeper M Srinivas whippedoff the bails to run him out. In a 206 minute stay at the crease thesouthpaw, who relished displaying his strokes, took just 158 ballswhile managing to find the signboards on 13 occasions.Then Badrinath (15), who replaced Sriram lasted for just 39 balls anddeparted for a catch to Raju off NP Singh. But his partner RajatBhatia, found ample company in Sridharan Sharath (23 not out) andduring the unbeaten 55 run stand they took the score past the 250 runmark. Bhatia in the course of his 360 minute stay at the centre has sofar faced 263 balls and found the boundary rope 14 times.