India domestic: Orissa Snatch Narrow First Innings Lead
An absorbing tussle for the first innings lead highlighted the final day's play between Orissa and Bihar at Cuttack on Thursday
25-Nov-1999
An absorbing tussle for the first innings lead highlighted the
final day's play between Orissa and Bihar at Cuttack on Thursday.
Bihar put up a game fight but finally fell four runs short
of Orissa's total of 390.
Bihar did not seem to have much chance of grabbing the first
innings lead when they resumed at 259 for seven. Their task seemed
to be even more difficult when overnight batsman S Prakash left at
275. But the other overnight batsman AV Kumar, who had come in at
No 9 showed a lot of defiance. First with KVP Rao (16) he put on
84 runs for the ninth wicket. AV Kumar dominated the partnership
and continued the good work with last man Dhiraj Kumar with whom
he stretched the score by 27 runs. Then with the Bihar score on
386, Dhiraj Kumar was out for 15. AV Kumar was left unbeaten on
a gallant 96. He batted 4-1/2 hours, faced 173 balls and hit
11 fours. S Satpathy was the most successful bowler taking four
for 65 from 35 overs. In the remaining time, Orissa openers
SS Das (44) and Jai Chandra (39) had some good batting practice
hitting 84 runs in 27 overs without being separated when stumps
were finally drawn.