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Tamil Nadu in command

Hyderabad's hopes of making a match their Ranji Trophy league tie against Tamil Nadu rested on captain Mohammad Azharuddin after the visitors were reduced to 94 for 4 in their first innings in reply to Tamil Nadu's first innings score of 404 on the second day at the M A Chidambaran stadium in Madras today.

Fading light forced an early end to the day's play.

Azharuddin walked in after Hyderabad lost opener Nanda Kishore (7) to Tamil Nadu medium pacer D J Gokulakrishnan, and one drop batsman Vinay Kumar was castled by the other medium pacer S Mahesh for 15. This was after the other opener left hander Daniel Manohar added 33 runs for the second wicket with Vinay Kumar. He opened his account with a delectable drive to point off India medium pacer and Tamil Nadu captain Robin Singh, but had the mortification of losing Daniel for 34 (144 minutes, 3 fours) and Vanka Pratap (2 in 9 minutes) soon to Mahesh, who in a fiery spell captured three wickets as Hyderabad were reeling at 64 for 4.

However, he settled down and played some vintage shots against Mahesh and left arm medium pacer D Devanand in his unbeatan innings off 24. He was well supported the experienced M V Sridhar (batting 8, in 35 minutes).

With very little batting to follow, both these veterans hold the key to Hyderabad's fortunes.

Earlier, resuming at the overnight score of 252 for 4, Tamil Nadu were all out for 404, one hour after lunch, with captain Robin Singh (29), Vasanth Saravanan (4), Reuben Paul (17), D J Golulakrishnan (46), S Sriram (121) and S Mahesh (46) making useful contributions.

Hyderabad medium pacer N P Singh finished withfigures of 5 for 100.