Haryana send TN on a leather hunt

Rohtak: Haryana opener Nitin Saini and No. 3 batsman Sunny Singh added 241 runs for the second wicket partnership as hosts scored at 293 for two at stumps, against former champions Tamil Nadu in a Ranji Trophy quarterfinal match at the Bansi Lal Stadium on Friday.

Tamil Nadu captain Dinesh Karthik's decision to bat first on a seaming track backfired badly as Nitin (137 batting, 283 balls, 15x4, 2x6) and Sunny (102, 203 balls, 10x4, 3x6) faced hardly any problems for the rival pacers who have had a poor season.

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Medium pacer Sunil Sam induced an edge of opener Ravi dewan with Haryana's score at 19 but it was a struggle for the bowlers for the next five hours when the duo hardly gave them anything to cheer about save couple of chances provided by Nitin on 11 and 28. The unlucky bowlers were Sunil Sam and Aushik Sreenivas. First it was Dinesh Karthik who dropped Nitin and then S badrinath was the offender.

There was a lot of help for the pacers but L Balaji (0/58) and Chandresekhar Ganapathy (0/40) couldn't exploit the conditions.

It was left-arm spinner R Aushik Sreenivas who came in for some harsh treatment from the two batsmen. All the five sixes were hit off Aushik (two by Nitin and three by Sunny).

Karthik used as many as seven bowlers including Rajgopal Sathish and Abhinav Mukund but they failed to provide any decisive inroads.

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Even the normally dependable Ravichandran Ashwin (22-1-58-1) couldn't do anything remarkable as the two batsmen played him with ease.

After coming together in the eighth over of the innings, Sunny departed in the 81st over of the day when Ashwin finally had something to cheer about with big-bodied Haryana batsman providing a catch to KB Arun Karthik.

Saini however remained unbeaten at the end of the day as he took his season's tally to 522 runs.