Left-hander Prateek Yadav brought up his century (109, 132b, 11x4, 5x6) and skipper Amandeep Khare fell three runs short of a ton (97, 267b, 9x4) as Chhattisgarh got to 450 for nine before play was called off due to rain on day two of the semifinal against TNCA XI in the Buchi Babu Memorial All India invitational cricket tournament at the NPR College cricket ground in Natham on Tuesday.
Prateek continued his brisk scoring form, and reached his century with two sixes off left-arm spinner Ajith Ram. He charged at the spinner for a long-off six to get to 94 and two balls later, slog-swept him for a huge midwicket six to get to his hundred off 113 balls.
When pacer Achyuth challenged him with a short ball, he pulled it to the square leg boundary for a four. He casually charged at pacer Sonu Yadav and lofted an inside-out four to the cover boundary, and pulled his not-so-short delivery to the square leg boundary for a four.
When he went on the backfoot to cut off-spinner Lakshay Jain once, though, he edged it for a four past the slip, who missed it because of his late reflex reaction. He eventually missed his attempted inside-out to the cover boundary to be bowled off Lakshay.
By the time he departed, Prateek had extended the fourth-wicket stand to 164 runs with his captain Amandeep, who had resumed his attritional batting from overnight.
Amandeep flicked for a midwicket four off Achyuth, cover-drove for a four off Sonu. He charged at Ajith for a midwicket four again. Lakshay’s off-spin was reverse-swept to deep backward point and lofted to long on for two fours.
Lakshay nearly had him when he slashed at a wide delivery and edged it to be dropped on 90 by a diving Boopathi Vaishna Kumar at gully. But he again ended up hitting a wide delivery on the leg side off Lakshay straight to short fine leg, where Mokit Hariharan took a sharp low catch.
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