Andhra replied cautiously to Tamil Nadu's healthy first innings score of 356 on the second day of their Cooch Behar Trophy Under-19 game at the Guru Nanak College Ground in Chennai today. At stumps the visitors had progressed to 69/2 from 39 overs of subdued batting.

Resuming at 230/5, Tamil Nadu lost skipper S Vidyuth twelve runs into the day's play. Vidyuth's 60 was compiled from 135 balls and included one boundary and two sixes. The other overnight batsman VS Suri completed his half century and went on to top score with 69 (246 balls, 5 fours, 1 six) before falling leg before to Sankara Rao.

Although HM Patel fell one run later, the ninth wicket pair of G Vignesh and L Balaji added 59 in 24.2 overs before the former was stumped by wicketkeeper Taher Hussain off skipper Venugopala Rao for 48 (90 balls, 6 fours, 1 six). That was at 340 and soon after, Balaji's stubborn resistance finally came to an end for 23 when Sankara Rao held a return catch to terminate the Tamil Nadu innings. Both Sankara Rao and Venugopala Rao bagged three wickets each.

Andhra lost opener VM Sai to Balaji in the sixth over of their reply but opener Taher Hussain (35) and one-drop Shaik Hussain (19) then dropped anchor and safely negotiated the subsequent 33 overs and five balls through to stumps, with an undefeated 49 run stand.

© CricInfo