Ranji Trophy: Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu play out a draw at Chennai

Rajasthan easily took the first innings lead against Tamil Nadu at Chennai.

Chennai: Dec 25, 2013

As expected, Rajasthan easily took the first innings lead against Tamil Nadu as their Ranji Trophy Group B match ended in a tame draw in Chennai on Wednesday.

Overnight Rajasthan batsmen Hrishikesh Kanitkar (52) and Rajesh Bishnoi (68) completed their half-centuries as the visitors scored 438 before being all out in reply to Tamil Nadu score of 318.

The hosts had made 76 for no loss in their second essay when stumps were drawn for the final time in the match.

After getting only one point from this match, Tamil Nadu are now in a precarious position. They now have to win their next match against Bengal at home to progress to quarterfinal stage.

With the top three teams to make the next grade, Railways are sitting pretty with 27, followed by UP (23), Baroda (20) and Tamil Nadu and Bengal on 18 each.

Tamil Nadu’s performance in the whole season has been below their par as they have won just one match from seven (drawing the remaining six).Their spinners miserably failed against Rajasthan.

In fact, the pitch was tailor made for the hosts’ three specialist spinners in Rahil Shah, Malolan Rangarajan and Aushik Srinivas but they failed to trap the batsmen to play strokes and the drives.

In contrast, Rajasthan captain Kanitkar handled both his bowlers and batsmen well. The approach of openers — Siddarth Sharaf and Vineet Saxena was flawless and then Ashok Maneria carried on from a good start before Kanitkar and Rajesh Bishnoi consolidated their innings to achieve the vital first innings lead this morning.

Brief scores:

Tamil Nadu 318 and 76 for no loss (Baba Aparajith 34, Arun Karthik 37) drew with Rajasthan 438.