CHENNAI: Parsoon Singh (4/67) and Nikash Nerurkar (3/32) took seven wickets among themselves, propelling Mumbai to a lead of 133 runs over Tamil Nadu on the second day of the Vijay Merchant Trophy Under 16 Elite Group D league round match played at Mangaldoi Sports Association stadium, Mangaldoi, Assam.
Tamil Nadu were all out for just 185 runs in their first innings with S Naveen being the top-scorer with 46 runs. Mumbai were 38 for one in their second essay at stumps. Mumbai have an overall lead by 171 runs, it remains to be seen at what score they declare on Wednesday and press for an outright win.
Brief scores: Mumbai 318 & 38 for one in 12 ovs vs Tamil Nadu 185 in 79.4 ovs (M Mohith Singh 27, S Naveen 46, Krishna Raya 37, Parsoon Singh 4/67, Nikash Nerurkar 3/32).
Coimbatore post 225 A Bhavan Sree’s 43 and Hari K Pandya’s 40 helped Coimbatore to post 225 in 89.1 overs against Tiruchirapalli on the first day of the semifinals of the TNCA inter-districts U-19 tournament played at Coimbatore. Brief scores: At Coimbatore: Coimbatore 225 in 89.1 ovs (A Bhavan Sree 43, Hari K Pandya 40, KS Barath Rithvik 3/53) vs Tiruchirapalli. At Tenkasi: Tenkasi 249 in 84.2 ovs (KK Shanmugarajan 67, M Kaleeswaran 41, D Sam Tony 40, S Arivurajan 32, S Sachin 3/34, K Sameer Khan 3/53) vs Chengalpattu 16/2 in 3.4 ovs.
Five share lead Five players — three foreigners and two Indians — share the lead with 2.5 points each at the end of the fourth round of the 9th Tamil Nadu IM-norm closed circuit chess tournament, organised by Salem District Chess Association at Yercaud on Tuesday.
Victories were recorded by the two Belarus Grandmasters — Alexei Federov and Evgeniy Podolchenko — and the Russian IM David Gochelashvili. Alexei played his usual Sicilian defence against Arjun C Krishnamachari of Chennai, wherein Alexei gained a pawn in the opening. Later, it turned to be the decisive factor in a rook and bishop end game. Alexei’s passer pawn ultimately gave him the point.
After the queen exchange on the 25th move of the Petrov’s defence played by J Akshit Kumar of AP, the IM Russian held the upper hand. Akshit’s two sets of doubled pawns was a big disadvantage to him and he lost the rook and knight end game in 39 moves. Twelve-year-old Rosh Jain of Delhi had to lose the exchange against Evgeniy on the 42nd move to safeguard his position in a French defence game. Evgeniy allowed Rosh to promote the pawn. But, by then the damage was done to Rosh’s king, which was checkmated on the 51st move.
