Vijay Merchant Trophy Under 16: Andhra Pradesh boys are South Zone champions
Hyderabad: Andhra continued their brilliant run in the Vijay Merchant Trophy Under 16 cricket championship to thump Goa by an innings and 95 runs in their fifth and last round match on Thursday to top the table with 19 points and emerge South Zone champions, thereby qualifying for the national knockouts. In another match, Karnataka crushed Kerala by an innings and six runs to finish runners-up in the zone and make it to the knockout stage.
Andhra’s left-arm spinner Y. Vasu took another five-wicket haul (5 for 40) as Goa crashed to 135 all out in their second innings while following on. K. Nithish Kumar Reddy (2/13) and Srikar (2/41) played supporting roles. Another left-arm spinner, Paras Gurbax Arya, took 5 for 64 to bowl Karnataka to an outstanding victory.
Andhra have been in amazing form. Their opening batsman K. Nitish Kumar Reddy, vice-captain and the right hander from Visakhapatnam scored 301 against Tamil Nadu, 190 against Karnataka, 69 against Kerala, 94 against Hyderabad and 134 against Goa totaling 788 at an astonishing average of 157.60. He is the first batsman from Andhra to aggregate 788 runs in five matches, that too playing only five innings. He became the fourth batsman from Andhra to score a triple hundred in BCCI organised matches, the others being Amit Pathak, K. S. Bharat and B. Sumanth all in Ranji Trophy. Besides scoring 788 runs Nithish also claimed 15 wickets while opening the Andhra bowling attack. In the last match against Goa he claimed nine wickets.
Among other batsmen, B. Yogananda, a left-hander from Anantapur, got 206 runs and captain P. Subrahmanyam from Nellore scored 318 runs with a century against Hyderabad and E. Dharani Kumar Naidu from Chittoor scored 261 runs with a century against Tamil Nadu contributed their best to the team’s success.
The bowling was spearheaded by left-arm spinner Y. Vasu from Vizianagaram who claimed 29 wickets at an average of 16.37. He was ably supported by off spinner S. Asif Hussain from Kadapa who got 10 wickets and Guntur medium pacer P. Akshay Kumar, who got five wickets. Behind the stumps M. Lekhaz Reddy from Ongole kept the wickets tidily and had 10 victims to his credit.
Brief Scores
At NFC Grounds: Andhra 340 in 96.1 overs bt Goa 110 and following on 135 in 62.3 overs (Anand R. Tendulkar 63, K. Nithish Kumar Reddy 2/13, Y. Vasu 5/40, Srikar 2/41). Points: Andhra-7, Goa-0.
At ECIL Grounds: Kerala 146 &198 in 59.5 overs (Rohan Nair 58, Aryan Kathuria 74, Jaseer C. N. 24, Kushal Gowda 2 for 46, Paras Gurbax Arya 5/ 64 — 21-6-64-5, Chinmay N. A. 2/44) lost to Karnataka 350 in 98.2 overs. Points: Karnataka-7, Kerala-0.
At Gymkhana Grounds: Hyderabad 161 & 171 in 52 overs (P. Shiva 55) lost to Tamil Nadu 186 & 147 for 4 in 50.3 overs (B. Sai Sudarshan 68, Mohana Kumar 22, Manav Parakh 25). Points: Hyderabad-0, Tamil Nadu-6.
