Laxman comes up with invaluable knock

By Our Sports Reporter

KANPUR, APRIL 2. V.V.S. Laxman played just the knock his team needed. A well-paced, unbeaten 177 enabled Hyderabad declare at 381 for five, setting Uttar Pradesh a target of 311 runs for an outright win, and giving its own bowlers slightly more than a day to bowl out the opposition.

The Ranji Trophy quarterfinal being played at the Green Park Stadium here expectedly goes into the fifth day with a lot of interest. A lot depends on how Uttar Pradesh takes things. Going for the runs, one feels, should be better than going into a shell.

By close, Uttar Pradesh had reached 38 without loss in 21 overs, and now needs to score another 290 runs in however many overs Hyderabad bowls in its quest for 10 wickets. One naturally expects it to send down more than the mandatory 90 in a day, for it will go out of the championship for conceding the first innings lead, if it fails to bowl out the opposition again.

The turf did not do too much, but stroke-making was not very easy either. In such a situation, Laxman did the right thing to hang on in the middle, keeping the scorer busy with singles and twos and also playing his shots. He batted for 377 minutes, faced 241 deliveries, hitting 16 boundaries and three sixes - two off left- arm medium-pacer Shalabh Srivastava and one off off-spinner Musi Raza.

Laxman thus got a century in each innings, having scored 128 in the first innings. He had done the same in last year's Ranji quarterfinal against Delhi at the Gymkhana ground in Secunderabad (110 and 193). Laxman showed a very professional approach, playing with caution in the company of opener A. Nandakishore early this morning, and going for runs after lunch. He did not fight shy of dancing down the wicket on the odd occasion, and even came out of the crease to the seamers.

Laxman reached his century in 146 minutes, in which he faced 109 deliveries and hit seven fours. The rest of his nine fours and three sixes came after he had reached the three-figure mark and seen Hyderabad to a position of safety.

Seeing Laxman's approach, the Uttar Pradesh bowlers did try to bowl outside the stumps, but Laxman did not hesitate in reaching for the ball and hitting over the in-field. Laxman did enjoy the odd chance, but never got bogged down.

Nandakishore hit 11 fours in his 93, before he went for a sweep to left-arm spinner Gyanendra Pandey and was declared out leg before wicket. The batsman thought he had got some bat to the ball, but had to go back when he was very much in sight of a century. D. Vinay Kumar chipped in with a useful 48 (five fours).

By close, Raju had tried four of his bowlers. Off- spinner Kanwaljit Singh, who bagged six wickets in the first innings, again looked the pick of the lot. There were quite a few appeals for catches in the close cordon and leg before decisions off his bowling, and one can expect many more on the last day.

The scores:

Hyderabad - 1st innings: 291.

Uttar Pradesh - 1st innings: 362.

Hyderabad - 2nd innings: A. Nandakishore lbw b Pandey 93, Daniel Manohar c Raza b Ratnesh Mishra 14, V.V.S. Laxman (not out) 177, Vanka Pratap lbw b Zaidi 10, D. Vinay Kumar c Pradeep Yadav b Shalabh Srivastava 48, Parth Satwalkar c Shukla b Pandey 8, N.P. Singh (not out) 2, Extras (b- 17, lb-8, w-4) 29, Total (for five wickets declared) 381.

Fall of wickets: 1-29, 2-209, 3-240, 4- 349, 5-373.

Uttar Pradesh bowling: Ashish Winston Zaidi 27-10-50-1, Shalabh Srivastava 22-4-92-1, Ratnesh Mishra 11-1-53-1, Gyanendra Pandey 15-3-62-2, Musi Raza 13-0-56-0, Mohammad Kaif 5-0-19-0, Rizwan Shamshad 5-0-24-0.

Uttar Pradesh - 2nd innings: Mohammad Saif (batting) 16, Jyoti Yadav (batting) 18, Extras (nb-4) 4, Total (for no loss) 38.

Hyderabad bowling: N.P. Singh 4-1-6-0, Parth Satwalkar 6-2-12-0, Kanwaljit Singh 7-2-14-0, Venkatapathy Raju 4-3-6-0.

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