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Match 5 - TNCA Presidents XI (459 & 227/4 declared) drew with Railways (355 & 244/7)
Match 6 - TNCA XI (393 & 177/5 declared) drew with Haryana (218 & 201/5)
Match 7 - Hyderabad (293 & 26/1) beat Jharkhand (178 & 140) by nine wickets
Match 8 - Baroda (255 & 254) beat Jammu and Kashmir (114 & 108) by 287 runs
Top performers after week two
Most Runs - Pratham Singh - 304 runs (Railways)
Highest Score - Shubham Khajuria (J&K) - 202 vs Chhattisgarh
Most wickets - Abid Mushtaq (J&K) - 14 wickets
Best Figures - Ninad Rathwa 7/76
One for the gram
Is Ishan Kishan now an off-spinner?
How do you know Gautam Gambhir’s time as a coach has truly begun? When two of the best wicketkeeping prospects in the country - Rishabh Pant and Ishan Kishan - both start bowling.
While Pant was bowling leg spinners, Kishan took the more conventional route of bowling off spin. How funny was his action? Well, you can watch it here!
How did the big guns fare?
Ishan Kishan - 1 & 5 against Hyderabad
After a stellar first-round display at the Buchi Babu Trophy, Kishan’s form fell off a cliff in the second round. Against Hyderabad, a team that previously was playing plate group, the left-hander was dismissed for two single-figure scores.
What makes it worse is that the southpaw was dismissed twice by the left-arm spinner Tanay Thyagarajan.
Baba Indrajith - 167 and 75 against Haryana
Ignoring Indrajith, the red-ball batter right now, is almost a cardinal sin. The Tamil Nadu man is in the biggest purple patch of his cricketing career, with an average of 60.23 in the last two years. Indrajith continued the same form at the Buchi Babu Trophy, with a stunning 167 against a quality Haryana bowling unit in the first innings.
If that wasn’t enough, he continued that run into the second innings, where he ended up with a 109-ball 75, striking at nearly 70. An Indian ‘A’ call-up around the corner? One can only hope.
Abdul Samad - 13 and 18 against Baroda
Abdul Samad didn’t have the best of outings against Baroda in a clash where spin dominated. The J&K batter could only put 13 runs on the board in the first innings before being trapped in front by Ninad Rathwa, with 12 of those runs coming in boundaries. In the second dig, Samad was promoted to No.4, where he yet again had a dazzling start (18 off 17) before Mahesh Pithiya removed him.
Seizing the chances
Mahesh Pithiya - 3/55 and 5/49 against J&K
Quite a stellar round for the Ashwin-lite off-spinner Mahesh Pithiya. The off-spinner bowled with some crazy control to price out eight wickets across two innings in the clash against Jammu and Kashmir.
Pithiya picked up three wickets in the first innings, all via LBWs. However, in the second innings, he was aided by the turn that was on offer, with the prized scalp of Samad. In all, a quality showing from Pithiya.
Sai Kishore - 7/76 and 2/49 against Haryana
"I feel I am one of the best spinners in the country. Put me in a Test match, I am ready. So, I am not worried too much,” Sai Kishore told the New Indian Express.
He wasn’t wrong, either. The left-arm spinner had quite a showing in the clash against Haryana, picking up seven wickets in the first innings, accounting for three out of the five batters before cleaning the tail up.
Additionally, in the second innings, he finished with figures of 2/49, removing Ankit Kumar and Lakshay Sangwan.
Tanay Thyagarajan - 5/47 and 2/31 against Jharkhand
Like Sai Kishore, the left-arm spinner Tanay Thyagarajan too had quite a stellar outing against a fabled Jharkhand side. Thyagarajan removed Jharkhand’s star - Kishan - in both innings, one with a catch and the other, with a caught and bowled.
He finished with figures of 5/47 in the first innings before a 2/31 in the second innings helped Hyderabad set up a shocking win over Jharkhand.
Mohammed Ali - 182 and 1/54 against Railways
“Very good youngster, three-dimensional cricketer [Mohammed Ali], he’s just 19 years old. He’s done very well in junior cricket, he has a 300 against his name as well. He broke into the Ranji Trophy squad last year, he will only become better. Only upside for him,” Indrajith said in an earlier conversation with Cricket.com.
Ali proved why he is rated highly with a stellar 182 against the Railways, a knock where he smashed 24 boundaries, including four sixes. He put on a 139-run partnership with another youngster, Andre Siddarth (81), to take the TNCA President’s XI to 459 in the first innings.
He also bowled a decent spell in the second innings, picking up a solitary wicket.
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