Hyderabad: Captain A. T. Rayudu scored an unbeaten half-century as Hyderabad quelled Assam’s challenge to script a four-wicket win in their Ranji Trophy fifth round match played at Guwahati on Monday.
Resuming at their overnight score of 300 for 7 in their second innings, Assam were out for 331, setting the visitors 142 for an outright win.
Hyderabad made heavy weather of the modest target though and slipped to 69 for 5 before a 55-run stand between Rayudu and Akash Bhandari rescued them.
Rayudu made 52 off 73 balls and executed seven boundaries while Bhandari contributed a crucial 36-ball 26 that included a four and a six. Earlier, K. Sumanth made 32.
Hyderabad gained six points from the match to take their tally to 15 that gives them the third place in Group ‘A’ behind Karnataka (26) and Delhi (24) with the last league match to be played at home against Delhi from Saturday.
Meanwhile in Indore, Tamil Nadu’s hopes of advancing to the knockouts suffered a blow after their Group ‘C’ game against Madhya Pradesh ended in a tame draw.
Needing an outright win in the two remaining games to keep its hopes of advancing alive, Tamil Nadu could only manage a first innings lead, which pegged it back in the race. Tamil Nadu got three points to take their tally to 11 from five matches with one game against Baroda to go.
brief scores
Group A
At Guwahati: Hyderabad 326 & 144/6 in 39 overs (Ambati Rayudu 52*, Arup Das 2/21) bt Assam 136 & 331 in 109 overs (Amit Sinha 122, Rajakkudin Ahmed 75, Sudeep Tyagi 3/34).
At Kanpur: Karnataka 655 & 262 for no loss in 59 overs (R. Samrath 126*, Mayank Agarwal 133*) drew with UP 331 in 84 overs (Umang Sharma 89, Shivam Chaudhary 57, Rinku Singh 73, Shreyas Gopal 3/63).
Group b
At Surat: Rajasthan 153 & 341 in 107.3 overs (Robin Bist 81, C. Bist 54, M K Lomror 60, S. Desai 5/129) drew with Gujarat 601/4 decl.
At Rohtak: Haryana 184 & 167 in 86.3 overs (Rajat Paliwal 45, Ram Dayal 6/44) bt J&K 176 & 157 in 44.1 overs (Owais Shah 52*, A. Chahal 5/53).
At Trivandrum: Kerala 225 & 411/6 decl bt Saurashtra 232 & 95 in 51.3 overs (Jalaj Saxena 4/29, Sijomon Joseph 3/29)
Group c
At Indore: Madhya Pradesh 264 & 351/4 decl in 102.5 overs (Rajat Patidar 89, Shubam Sharma 56, Harpreet Singh Bhatia 100*, Ankit Dane 65*, K. Vignesh 3/42) drew with Tamil Nadu 326 & 79/1 in 25 overs (Abhinav Mukund 32*).
At Ongole: Mumbai 332 & 279/6 decl in 57 overs (Shreyas Iyer 89) drew with Andhra 215 & 219/5 in 81 overs (KS Bharat 68, Ricky Bhui 55, K. Kothari 3/55).
At Vadodara: Baroda 503 & 259/1 in 43.5 overs (Aditya Waghmode 101*, Deepak Hooda 100*) drew with Odisha 445 in 166 overs (Subhransu Senapati 173, Biplab Samantaray 55, Rajesh Dhupar 86, Swapnil Singh 5/50).
Group d
At Porvorim: Goa 239 & 151 in 53.3 overs (Snehal Kauthankar 56, Akshay Wakhare 5/54) lost to Vidarbha 427/3 decl.
