Nitin's five-wicket haul puts Hyderabad on top

HYDERABAD: Nitin Sai Yadav put Hyderabad in a strong position against Pondicherry in the Vijay Merchant Trophy U-16 tournament at the RGIC Stadium, here on Friday. At stumps on the second day, the visitors were 169 for eight. They are 90 runs behind with only two wickets in hand.
Replying to Hyderabad's 259, Pondicherry got off to a modest start With Sai Satwik Kandukuri (20) and Kushwanth Silora (29) adding 36 for the first wicket.Kushwanth (29) and skipper Jaswanth Shreeram then took the score to 70 before the former became Nitin's first victim.
Hyderabad took a vice-like grip on the match as Nitin struck twice more in quick succession. Later, Ashwad Choudhary got rid of Shreeram (48) as Pondicherry were reduced to 116 for five. Mukesh M (31) offered some resistance but the Hyderabad bowlers were on top.
Nitin has taken five for 37 in 21 overs and Pranav Varma bagged two for 26.
Abhinav, Rasheed steady Andhra
After the first day's play was washed out, the weather gods were favourable on Friday as 45 overs of play was possible in the game between Andhra and Karnataka at the CSR Sharma College-ACA ground in Ongole.
Put into bat, Andhra were off to a disastrous start as they lost Shaik Kaja Mohiddhin (3) and K Revanth Reddy (3) with just 12 on the board.
M Abhinav and Shaik Rasheed then teamed up to thwart the Karnataka attack. The duo added 87 for the unbroken third wicket before play was called off.
Abhinav was batting on 55 off 121 balls with 10 hits to the fence and the sedate Rasheed was on 29 off 133 balls with three boundaries.
Brief scores: Hyderabad 259 in 88.5 vs CA Pondicherry 169/8 in 95 overs (Kushwant Silora 29, Jashwanth Shreeram 48, Mukesh M 31, Pranav Varma 2/26, Nitin Sai Yadav 5/37).
Andhra 99/2 in 45 overs (M Abhinav 55 batting, Sk Rasheed 29 batting) vs Karnataka.