Murali Vijay shines for Tamil Nadu as bowlers peg back Railways

New Delhi, Nov 4 : India discard Murali Vijay struck an unbeaten half-century to help Tamil Nadu to score 150 for two after Railways were bundled out for 327, adding just 85 runs to their overnight tally on the second day of the four-day Ranji Trophy Super League Group A encounter at the Karnail Singh Stadium here today

Vijay (65, 4x7, 6x1) and Subramanium Badrinath (33) were at the crease when the stumps were drawn.

The right-handed duo has so far added an unbeaten 67 runs for the third wicket.

Tamil Nadu's reply to Railways begin on a disastrous note when opener Abhinav Mukund ran himself out in the very first over of the innings without troubling the scorer.

However, Vijay added a valuable 83 runs for the second wicket with number three batsman Arun Karthik (47) to bail out Tamil Nadu from the initial setback.

Karthik, who was more fluent than his partner, missed his half-century by three runs as he failed to read a Murali Kartik delivery only to see his stumps being uprooted.

Karthik played 73 deliveries for his 47 runs in which he hit seven boundaries.

Railways skipper Karthik was the only successful bowler from his team as he claimed Karthik's wicket by consuming 43 runs in 12 overs. Earlier, resuming from their overnight score of 242 for four, Railways was forced on the backfoot after adding another 32 runs to their kitty as medium-pacer Chandrasekhar Ganpathy claimed two early wickets off Sanjeeb Sanyal (15) and Mahesh Rawat (0).

The scoreboArd was reading 274 for six at the time.

Apart from another overnight batsman all-rounder Sanjay Bangar, who remained not out on 163, none of the Railways batsmen were able to make it into double figures.

Bangar's unbeaten 163 came in 441 minutes off 317 deliveries with the help of 20 boundaries and three towering sixes.

Abhinav Mukund was the pick of the bowlers from Tamil Nadu who claimed three wickets including the last two by costing just five runs in 2.4 overs.

Off-break bowler Ramchandra Ashwin also claimed three wickets while another off-spinner Suresh Kumar and pacer Ganpathy claimed two wickets each.

--UNI

(c) 2009 Published with permission from United News of India.
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