Y Venugopal Rao scored a fluent century as Andhra piled on the misery on an under-strength Delhi team in their four-day Ranji Trophy Elite Group 'A' cricket match at Visakhapatnam on Saturday.
Venugopal hit a majestic 142 in Andhra's first innings score of 417 for seven at close on the second day of the match. Captain M S K Prasad (71) and Y Ganeswar Rao (53) also joined in the run feast with impressive half-centuries as Delhi bowlers struggled to contain the home batsmen.
Resuming at 186 for three, Andhra took advantage of a weak bowling attack to compile the 400-plus score, which virtually knocks Delhi out of the competition.
The visitors, in a must-win situation to have some hope for a semifinal berth, are unlikely to force a result in their favour in the next two days in the absence of seven regular players including Akash Chopra, Virendra Sehwag, Ashish Nehra, Gautam Gambhir, Mithun Manhas, Amit Bhandari and Sarandeep Singh.
Venugopal, who hit 17 fours during his 524-minute stay at the crease, was involved in two century-plus stands. He put on 150 for the fourth wicket with Prasad and 105 with Ganeswar Rao.
For Delhi, Kunal Lal was the most successful bowler with figures of two for 83. N S Negi, who scalped Venugopal, Sanjay Gill, Harender Choudhary and Abhishek Sharma picked one each.
