Tripura put up brave fight against TNCA

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Chennai: Unheralded Tripura held their nerves to score 221 and then reduced title contenders TNCA XI to 66 for four on the first day of the Group-B match of the Buchi Babu cricket tournament here today.Electing to bat first, Tripura top order batsman Nirupam Sen Chowdhury (82) and Manisankar Murasingh (49) helped their team post a fighting total.Then and then its right arm medium pacer scalped the opening batsmen cheaply with 2 for 22.A Prathiban (3/57) and Ravichandran Ashwin (2/44) shared five wickets between them for TNCA XI.At close, home batsmen K Bharath Shankar 29 and Rahil Shah 2 were at the crease when bad light stopped play.In a Group-D match, Assam, put in to bat, made 224 all out in 86.5 overs with strong contributions from Awijeet Roy (54, 5x4), Tarjinder Singh 56 (3x4, 1x6) and J Syed Mohammed 41 and Gokul Sharma 29 and Baroda replied with 14 without loss in eleven overs.Baroda left arm spinner Lukman Meriwala took three for 31, while Aditya Vasava (2/53) and Jyot Chhaya (2/26) were the other wicket takers.In a truncated Group-A match, which started at 2.20 pm and under reduced over rate at 82 overs a side, opting to bat first, Andhra against Bengal mustered 207 for three in 52.1 overs when bad light stopped play.Openers KS Bharat (45) and DB Prashanth (79) batted well for Andhra and added 94 runs for the first wicket in 27.1 overs. Bharath Reddy (42) and AG Pradeep (27) were at the crease when stumps were drawn.Bengal off spinner Amir Goni claimed 3 for 67.In the other two matches, TNCA districts made 132 all out in 80.4 overs and Hyderabad replied with 36 for one in 16 overs in a Group-C tie and TNCA President XI amassed 371 for seven in 100 overs against Kerala in Group-D.