da dobrowin： Tamil Nadu skipper S Sriram’s declaration late on the third day todaypaves the way for an intriguing finish in their Ranji Trophy SouthZone clash against Goa at the Rajendra Prasad Stadium in Margao
Sankhya Krishnan03-Nov-2000Tamil Nadu skipper S Sriram’s declaration late on the third day todaypaves the way for an intriguing finish in their Ranji Trophy SouthZone clash against Goa at the Rajendra Prasad Stadium in Margao. Thevisitors closed their second innings at 311/6 leaving their opponentsto play out seven overs until stumps. Openers A Bhagwath and VKolambkar did so with excruciating caution to finish at 4/0. Thatleaves Goa with the task of scoring a further 310 runs off 90 overstomorrow to force an outright victory.In the morning Tamil Nadu openers Sadagoppan Ramesh and SridharanSriram extended their stand to 137 before both departed in the spaceof three balls. Sriram was stumped by Bhagwath off Rane for 45 and inthe following over Ramesh edged Kalekar to Amre at first slip with noaddition to the total. Ramesh’s 79 was briskly efficient, gathered offjust 85 deliveries and including nine hits to the fence.Three runs later Sridharan Sharath (1) and Vasanth Saravanan (0) wereboth taken out by Rane in the same over to leave Tamil Nadu totteringat 140/4. It was left to Rajat Bhatia and Reuben Paul to resuscitatethe innings. Although Reuben was run out by Amre for 45, Bhatia wasjoined by another hardened campaigner in S Mahesh and they took TamilNadu through to tea at 311/6. The 21 year old Bhatia was undefeated on69 (168 balls, 6 fours, 1 six). Rain forced an interruption at tealeading to the loss of two hours and spoiling Tamil Nadu’scalculations. Sriram declared as soon as the game resumed at 17.00hours to set the stage for tomorrow’s denouement.