CHENNAI: Right-arm medium pacer Sonu Yadav's fifer was key in Tamil Nadu bagging a lead of 138 runs over Odisha on Day 2 of the Ranji Trophy played in Bhubaneswar on Friday. In the second essay, Tamil Nadu were 26/1 in 17 overs at stumps. N Jagadeesan once again failed to make an impact as he fell leg before to Sambit Baral for 4 runs.
Sonu made most out of the conditions in Bhubaneswar and seemed to have bowled with lot of fire and zest. With Gurjapneet Singh bowling at the other end, the Odisha batters had a tough time negotiating the Right-left combination and were at one stage in shambles at 21 for 5. Sonu picked up four of the five wickets to fall and it was a creditable performance from the Hosur-based bowling all-rounder who bagged his maiden fifer. TN's Ranji coach M Senthilnathan gave a positive assessment of the team's performance.
"Very happy to have got a good lead. Our bowlers did a good job. Sonu was outstanding, he bowled brilliantly," Senthilnathan told this daily.
"He (Sonu) pitched the ball in the right areas and bowled at a optimum length to force the Odisha batters into mistakes. He bowled the correct line where he could get for LBWs. The ball was skidding through. And if you bowl short, then you're not going to get wickets. So, the team plan was to keep it tight and bowl wicket to wicket," he added.
He executed it to perfection. He could get the first ball of his itself a wicket. Four of the five wickets, he got in the first spell itself. Good job indeed," he added.
From 21/5, Anil Parida (54) and Sambit Baral (36) put up a rescue act to get the hosts away from danger. "With the way Sonu was bowling, we thought they will not cross hundred. But this is First-class cricket and nothing comes easy. A couple of catches went down. Parida played a stubborn innings and he got support from Baral. Anyone can chip in and that's one area we have to be careful when they bat again," Senthilnathan added. Left-arm spinner P Vidyuth also joined the party by picking up two wickets.
"Given the situation and the wicket, Sai Kishore made the bowling changes. The captain makes the decision on the field. But you see Vidyuth as soon as he got a chance he got wickets. So no complaints," the coach added.
Senthilnathan was wary of the conditions and felt that it would not be easy to build a big score on Saturday.
"Saturday morning, we have to bat well for one and a half hours. Once we do that, we can make pretty good runs and put them under pressure," he said. But he felt that if one needs to be patient and convert starts into good scores. "Four of our batters got 50 odd runs. On this surface one needs to apply and bat with patience. Had our batters converted their starts into big scores without throwing away their wicket we would have got 450 runs.," Senthilnathan signed off.
