Kaarthick hundred spurs South Zone

Kaarthick, who plundered 23 fours in his 277-ball innings, forged three crucial partnerships with middle-order batsmen to shape South’s first innings after a poor start.

Irfan Pathan dismissed South openers Anirudha Srikkanth (19) and KB Pawan (0) and Dhawal Kulkarni accounted for Arun Karthik (22) to reduce the rivals to 76 for three. From here on, Karthik got into the act and batted with determination to take his team to a fighting total.

He shared a 44-run stand for the fourth wicket with Ganesh Satish (53) to steady the innings before Pathan (3/68) struck yet again and scalped the latter.
Kaarthick found another solid partner in CM Gautam (49) with whom he put on 121 for the fifth wicket.

Gautam missed out on his half-century but he did a great job before becoming the victim of Ravindra Jadeja (2/58).

Except for the players and officials, no one was there at the Rajiv Gandhi stadium to witness the resurrection of South’s innings as the Hyderabad Cricket Association kept the spectators away from game, fearing crowd trouble due to the Telangana dispute. However, the absence of a crowd did not diminish Kaarthick’s enthusiasm as he added another 89 runs with Rohan Prem (24) for the seventh wicket.
Kaarthick and Chandrasekar Ganapathy (8) were at the crease when stumps were drawn for the day.