Leg-spinner Jhathavedh Subramanyan picked up four for 44 to help TNCA XI bowl out Kerala for 178 in its second innings and coast to a ten-wicket win in the Group-D match of the Buchi Babu All India invitational cricket tournament at the India Cement Company ground here on Thursday.
TNCA XI skipper Shahrukh Khan on Wednesday said that the last-wicket pair will try and accumulate as many runs as possible, but with only 14 runs added to the overnight score of 344 for nine, the lead finally stood at 140 runs.
Turning point
It proved to be sufficient because of the turning point provided by Shahrukh himself. He chose to bowl himself and removed a well-set Sachin Baby who with a fifty (56, 102b, 6x4) was building the fourth-wicket partnership (78 off 169 balls) with Vathsal Govind Sharma (25, 89b) and it seemed TNCA might be hard-stretched for the win.
Shahrukh also took a fine slip catch to dismiss S. Sachin off Jhathavedh’s bowling. The leg-spinner, who went wicketless in the first innings, turned it around in the second essay and proved to be the catalyst for the victory.
Post-match, the 23-year-old Jhathavedh said: “It was nice to get a win on the board. I felt it was coming out nicely from the hand and that’s always a nice thing. Really happy to have contributed to a win, and to get an outright win especially, not just the first-innings lead. That’s something that all of us are really happy with.
“It’s nice that he (Shahrukh) claimed that big wicket (Sachin Baby) at that time. Luckily, we could all capitalise on it as well.”
TNCA XI’s Nidhish S. Rajagopal was adjudged the player-of-the-match for his 90 (144b, 10x4, 1x6) in the first innings.
The scores (day three):
At Tirunelveli: Kerala 218 & 178 in 59.3 overs (Sachin Baby 56, Jhathavedh Subramanyan 4/44) lost to TNCA XI 358 in 107.2 overs (K.T.A. Madhava Prasad 72, M. Shahrukh Khan 60, Nidhish S. Rajagopal 90) & 39 for no loss in 7.5 overs.
