Ashwin Hebbar slammed an unbeaten 101 and powered Andhra to a seven-wicket win over Tamil Nadu in a Vijay Hazare Trophy Group 'B' match at the Holkar Stadium, Indore on Monday. (More Cricket News)
Andhra captain G Hanuma Vihari won the toss and sent Tamil Nadu in to bat and the bowlers did very well to dismiss the opponent for 176 in 41.3 overs.
Hebbar was in cracking form and toyed with the opposition to attack to fashion a comfortable win.
Left-arm medium-pacer C Stephen (3/46), off-spinner Shoaib Mohammed Khan (3/24) and right-arm medium-pacer Girinath Reddy (2/33) struck at regular intervals to restrict a strong Tamil Nadu batting line-up, led by Dinesh Karthik.
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Girinath Reddy struck an early blow by dismissing left-handed opener C Hari Naishaanth (4). The other opener N Jagadeesan (11), who scored a ton in the opening match, was bowled by Girinath to leave the team at 23 for 2.
Tamil Nadu, winner of the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy recently, never really recovered from the early setbacks and were bowled out in the 42nd over.
B Aparajith was the top-scorer with 40, R Sonu Yadav contributed 37 while skipper Karthik (7) and M Shahrukh Khan (19), who was picked up for over Rs five crore by Punjab Kings in the IPL auctions, failed to sparkle.
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In reply, Hebbar kept attacking despite losing fellow opener Kranthi Kumar (14), Karan Shinde (0) and skipper Vihari (2) to be 67 for 3. He found an able partner in Ricky Bhui (52 not out, 41 balls, 6 fours, 2 sixes) and the duo added 114 runs for the fourth wicket to power Andhra.
Brief scores:
Tamil Nadu 176 all out in 41.3 overs (B Aparajith 40, R Sonu Yadav 37, R Sai Kishore 29, Shoaib Mohammed Khan 3/24, Stephen 3/46) lost to Andhra 181 for 3 in 29.1 overs (Ashwin Hebbar 101 not out, Ricky Bhui 52 not out) by seven wickets. Andhra: 4 points, TN: 0.
Jharkhand 217 for 9 in 50 overs (Utkarsh SIngh 51, Shahbaz Nadeem 45 not out, Siddharth Kaul 3/44) beat Punjab 215 all out in 45.5 overs (Mandeep Singh 68, Abhishek Sharma 56, Gurkeerat Mann 37, Rahul Shukla 2/34, Shahbaz Nadeem 2/36) by two runs. Jharkhand: 2 points, Punjab:0.
Madhya Pradesh 243 for 9 in 50 overs (Parth Sahani 68 not out, Aditya Shrivastava 52, Aditya Sarvate 3/39) lost to Vidarbha 246 for 6 in 48.5 overs (Ganesh Satish 47, Faiz Fazal 43, Aditya Sarvate 39 not out) by four wickets. Vidarbha: 4 points, MP: 0.
