Pacer Aditya Thakare's four-wicket burst had Tamil Nadu hanging on the ropes at 159 for six after the second day of their Ranji Trophy quarterfinal match in Nagpur on Sunday. (More Cricket News)
ಞTamil Nadu have a long batting line-up but none of their top order batters showed gumption to fight out on a rather tricky surface.
ไ The promising 18-year-old C Andre Siddharth, nephew of former Tamil Nadu batter Sridharan Sharath, played a lone hand with an impressive 65 off 89 balls (10x4, 2x6) but he did not have any support from the other end.
ꦅ It was a major reason behind Tamil Nadu still trailing by a considerable 194 runs after allowing Vidarbha to post 353 in their first innings.
🥀 TN's batting, much against what they did in the league stages, was in shambles this day as star batters like Narayan Jagadeesan (22), Vijay Shankar (22) and B Sai Sudharsan (7) all failed to chip in with anything substantial.
🍒 Sudharsan will be particularly disappointed as this was his first outing since playing against Australia A for India A in November, 2024.
𒆙 Since then, the left-handed batter was recuperating from a sports hernia surgery that he underwent in London in December last year.
🌱 At one stage, TN were 38 for four but Shankar and Siddharth added 95 runs to give them some hope, but the former edged Thakare to stumper Akshay Wadkar.
🦩 Now, TN will hope that veterans Pradosh Ranjan Paul (18 batting) and skipper R Sai Kishore (6 batting) will bail them out on Day 3.
൲ The Tamil Nadu batters can take a leaf out of the fight shown by Vidarbha batters, led by Karun Nair, who extended his overnight 100 to 122.
♌ But the real star in their batting was Harsh Dubey (69, 132 balls, 9x4) who batted in the company of tail lenders to take Vidarbha, overnight 264 for six, to a 350-plus total.
Brief scoresꩵ: Vidarbha: 353 all out in 121.1 overs (Karun Nair 122, Harsh Dubey 69, Danish Malewar 79; Sonu Yadav 3/91, Vijay Shankar 3/75) vs Tamil Nadu: 159/6 in 46 overs (C Andre Siddharth 65; Aditya Thakare 4/18).
