Hyderabad, Andhra in Superleague Ashish’s hat-trick in first over takes State to national round
An allround show by K.V. Sasikanth helped Andhra secure a 29-run victory over Tamil Nadu on Sunday and emerge champions of the South Zone leg of the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy Twenty20 tournament held at Kochi.
After the last round matches, Andhra topped the table with 16 points and progressed to the national Superleague along with Hyderabad, who rode on a hat-trick by Ashish Reddy to beat Goa by eight wickets and clinched a three-way tie for the second place with Karnataka and Tamil Nadu (all with 12 points) courtesy their net run rate.
Batting first, Andhra was down in the dumps at 93 for 8 in the 17th over when No.9 Sasikanth (27 not out) and No.10 B. Ayyappa (14 not out) put on a brilliant partnership of 36 for the ninth wicket to take the team total to 129 in the stipulated overs.
Then, Sasikanth returned with fantastic figures of 4-19-2 to put the skids under Tamil Nadu, who slipped to 44 for 8 in the 12th over. Aswin Crist (25 not out) and Rahil Shah (28 not out) tried to resurrect TN with a stand of 57 for the ninth wicket but could not save their side. Ashwin Hebbar was the other Andhra bowler to shine, taking 3 for 20.
Hyderabad had it easy against Goa, who were rocked in the very first over of the innings bowled by Ashish Reddy. The seamer claimed wickets off the fourth, fifth and sixth balls to complete a stupendous hat-trick. Darshan Misal then scored 67 to guide Goa to 118 but the Hyderabad batsmen overhauled the target in just 14.3 overs to improve their run-rate which proved crucial in the end.
Openers Tirumalsetti Suman (34), Tanmay Agarwal (31) and Akshath Reddy (39 not out) were the scorers for Hyderabad. SUMAN IS NATIONAL
TOP RUN-GETTER With a century and two 80plus scores in the South Zone leg, Suman is currently the highest run-getter in the tournament at the national level. He has aggregated 309 in five innings at an average of 61.80. He also has an impressive strike rate of 155.27, courtesy 32 boundaries and 18 sixes.
Mumbai’s Shoaib Shaik is second on the top-scorers’ list with 249 in four innings. Manan Vohra of Punjab is third with 231 runs from five innings.
BRIEF SCORES Andhra 129 for 8 in 20 overs (K.V. Sasikanth 27, Antony Dhas 2/27, Aswin Crist 2/17) bt Tamil Nadu 101 for 8 in 20 overs (Rahil Shah 28, Aswin Crist 25 n.o, Ashwin Hebbar 3/23, K.V. Sasikanth 2/9)
Goa 118 for 9 in 20 overs (Darshan Misal 67, C.V. Milind 3/22, Ashish Reddy 4-0-13-3, including hat-trick) lost to Hyderabad 121 for 2 in 14.3 overs (Akshath Reddy 39, T. Suman 34, Tanmay Agarwal 31, Darshan Misal 2/27)
Kerala 117 for 5 in 20 overs (Sanju Samson 28) lost to Karnataka 118 for 5 in 15.4 overs (Mayank Agarwal 68, Pavan Deshpande 29, Basil Thampi 2/15)