CHENNAI: Riding on youngster C Andre Siddarth's unbeaten 56, Tamil Nadu defeated Railways by five wickets on the third day of the Elite D Group Ranji Trophy tie at the MA Chidambaram stadium here on Wednesday. This was Tamil Nadu's sixth consecutive win over Railways and they got six points from this outing. Tamil Nadu now have 14 points from three matches and are placed second on the points table behind Mumbai.
Andre made best use of a slice of luck he enjoyed to play one of his most valuable innings at Chepauk that not only came at the right time, but also resulted in his team getting an outright win. His effort also helped him get to register his 11th First Class fifty.
Set a modest target of 128 runs, Tamil Nadu huffed and puffed towards the win. The main reason for this performance was the unnecessary change in the batting order. The hosts new top-order caved in due to poor shot selection and at times were at sea as how to go about on a surface that had variable bounce and turn.
Tamil Nadu sent SR Athish in place of Vimal Khumar to open the innings along with N Jagadeesan.
After a while Jagadeesan lost his patience and stepped out to play an ambitious shot, missed the line and was castled by offie Toufik Mondal. Now one expected the seasoned Pradosh Ranjan Paul to join Athish and do the rescue act, but Sonu Yadav was promoted to the No 3 slot. Athish and Sonu could not forge a stand. Athish tried too many things in his short stay and eventually fell to the guile of offie Raj Choudhary to be caught in the deep by Zubair Ali. Sonu too perished, deceived by the flight of Toufik, to be caught by Yuvraj Singh at widish mid wicket. B Indrajith and Andre added 50 runs in 25 overs for the fourth wicket and this brought the hosts close to the win.
"I thought, when Bhargav Merai dropped my catch, I felt that it was a wake-up call for me that I had to stay till the end because it was not an easy wicket to bat on. And I was batting with, luckily, Indrajith back then. He was the senior-most batter in the team. So, I feel it was much easier because he was there," said Andre after Tamil Nadu's win.
After getting a reprieve, Andre took singles and twos mainly and played till the end. "Actually, no, I wanted to loft the ball but it wasn't in my range and the wicket was quite tricky. So, lofting was one of the last options for me. Actually, I am happy about it but not satisfied. I felt this knock gave me immense confidence going into the next game because this was one of my personally best knocks. This is one of the best knocks I have played in Chennai so far," said the 20-year-old.
Among the spinners, Pradhyumn Parikh was able to get that extra bounce and the other two spinners Raj and Toufik were handy.
"It was actually difficult from ball one because as batters, we didn't know which ball was turning, which ball was going straight. And the wicket was playing a lot of tricks. Some balls were going low, some balls were just climbing. I felt the left arm spinner Raj was the toughest because that guy was challenging us each and every ball. And the other two also were good but I felt Raj was the most difficult to take on," insisted Andre.
Toufik insisted that his team should have put more runs in their first innings to earn a good lead. He complimented Tamil Nadu for their win and opined the game could have been close had they fielded better.
"We scored fewer runs than we should have in the second innings, and we lost too many wickets. If we had scored a few more runs, the pressure would have lasted longer for them when they came out to bat. For example, if the target had been 200, or even 170-180, it would have been a much more competitive contest. We tried our best, but we couldn't execute our plans completely," said Toufik.
"There were a few moments when things went slightly in their favour while they were batting. My bowling and my senior teammate's bowling created quite a few opportunities for dismissals. Some balls went just over the stumps, and we also dropped a catch or two. If we had taken those catches, the outcome of the match could have been different," he added, insisting that it was a good learning experience playing at Chepauk.
Brief scores: Railways 184 & 108 lost to Tamil Nadu 165 & 130/5 in 59.1 ovs (B Indrajith 23, C Andre Siddarth 56 n.o; Toufik Mondal 4/50).