Hyderabad opening pair put on a record 476-run stand

Hyderabad’s Under-19 opening pair entered the record books following a 476-run stand in the ongoing Cooch Behar trophy against A&A team. At the Rajiv Gandhi International stadium in Hyderabad, the home team’s openers G Vinith Reddy and K Nithesh Reddy put on the 4th highest opening stand in junior cricket.

The pair scored 327 runs on the first day and added 149 more runs on day 2 before the team captain Nithesh got out after scoring a brilliant 246 an over before Lunch. Hyderabad declared their innings at 527/3 with Vinith unbeaten on 230. Vinith struck 28 fours and a six in his 402-ball marathon innings while Nithesh hit 31 fours in his knock off 246, which came in 372 balls. It needed the 9th bowler used in the innings, NG Johnson to break the marathon stand.

The A&A team, a BCCI selected team from the Associate and Affiliate states completed their first innings in just 25 overs as they got bowled out for only 75 runs. Ammaar M Ayub, the son of HCA president Arshad Ayub, bagged 4 wickets for 12 runs in the 7 overs he bowled, as only two players from A&A team managed to get into double digits. They couldn’t escape an innings loss but had put on a better performance in the 2nd innings by posting 279 before eventually getting bowled out and losing the game by innings and 172 runs.

The 476-run stand by Vinith and Nithesh pair was the highest known stand in the Cooch Behar Trophy history. Previous highest was 413 runs between Bengal U19’s pair of RR Roy Chowdhury and A Subrata Pan for the 5th wicket against Tamil Nadu U19 in the quarters of the tournament in 2014/15 season at Bengal Cricket Academy Ground, Kalyani.

In junior cricket, only 3 opening stands were bigger than the Hyderabad pair’s opening stand in a multi-day game. The highest is during the Pranav Dhanawade’s record-breaking act, where he put on a 546-run stand with Aakash Singh. In fact, it was the only bigger stand than the Hyderabad pair for the opening wicket in minor cricket in India.