da pinnacle： The Tamil Nadu and Mumbai tie at the Guru Nanak College Ground,Chennai was always going to be a closely contested affair
Staff Reporter27-Jan-2002The Tamil Nadu and Mumbai tie at the Guru Nanak College Ground,Chennai was always going to be a closely contested affair. So it cameas no surprise to see the home team bounce right back into the gameafter conceding a four-run lead in the first innings. Fifties fromopener Sridharan Sriram and middle-order bat Sridharan Sharath sawthem post a relatively healthy 265 for eight in their second innings.This has already meant that the Mumbai batsmen will have to bettertheir first innings effort by a long way if they are to book theirquarterfinal berth.When the day began, the Tamil Nadu batsmen were faced with the task ofbatting out of the day and putting runs on the board thereby ensuringtheir team had the chance of securing the outright win they werelooking for. Sriram (61) and No.3 C Hemath Kumar, who made 35, puttheir team in the right direction. J Madanagopal (45) and Robin Singh(25) continued the good work as did Sharath, who made an unbeaten 50.Tamil Nadu will now be looking to him to probably take them beyond the300-run mark as this would leave the visitors with a stiff target inthis low-scoring match. For Mumbai, spinners Rajesh Pawar, RameshPowar and Sairaj Bahatule claimed two wickets each.