Batsmen give Plate A the upper hand in drawn encounter

Consistent individual displays of batting from Plate A's willow-wielders gave their side the slight edge in their drawn encounter against Elite A in the Duleep Trophy match at the MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai.

Winning the toss, Plate A skipper Hrishikesh Kanitkar opted to bat first, but he himself could make only six. But batsmen across the line-up did enough to get their side to a formidable 373 midway through the second day's play. Opening the batting, R Jaiswal and Barrington Rowland made 80 and 75 respectively, putting together a first-wicket stand of 147.

Plate A then experienced some hiccups in the middle-order before lower-oder bats Sunil Joshi and Dodda Ganesh added 117 runs for the eighth wicket. Joshi made a sedate 73 off 167 balls, with eight fours and two sixes, while Ganesh hit up a relatively rapid 72 off 112, striking eight fours and four sixes. For Elite A, left-arm pacer Irfan Pathan took five wickets for 88 runs.

Elite A responded with 281, 92 runs in deficit and thereby ceding first-innings points to Plate A. The final score of 281, too, was based largely on Sridharan Sriram's hundred. Playing on his home ground, Sriram made 119 off 240 balls, with 11 fours, but he found little support from his team-mates; the next highest scorer was Y Venugopal Rao, who scored 30.

Plate A continued to impress, and in their second innings, recovered from a precarious 78 for six to hit up 342 runs. Joshi and Ganesh did well again, making 66 (78, 9x4, 2x6) and 63 (96b, 8x4, 2x6), but it was stumper Thilak Naidu who top-scored this time, scoring 83 off 151 balls, with 11 fours and a six.

The target of 435 was clearly beyond Elite A on the final day of the contest, and the match was declared a draw when Elite A were 102 for three. Plate A took away five points from the game, while Elite A took three.