Ranji Trophy, Super league, 2007-08 [Ranji SS available]

[Chandan]

Happy B'Day apo. And I'm very disappointed by Bengal bowlers. Their pacers were useless in the 2nd dig. Why are the pace bowlers so ineffective when the freshness goes out of the track? Bose has started the season rather badly. I suppose he'll be losing his India A spot soon as well. Poor Tiwary's double century went in vain!

[apocalypse]

Thanks Gambit and Chandan... Birthday is tomorrow... dont why it is showing today

[Chandan]

Finally, ROUND ONE, DAY 4 Delhi 119 (Pankaj 5-43) and 387 (Kohli 106, Manhas 100, Bhatia 83, Pankaj 5-110) beat Rajasthan 85 and 249 (Khoda 71, Bist 69) by 172 runs Scorecard Delhi duly completed victory over Rajasthan on the fourth day at the Feroz Shah Kotla, taking the last three wickets in 21.1 overs. Mithun Manhas, the captain, brought himself on and quickly took two wickets and Amit Bhandari dismissed overnight batsman Robin Bist for 69 to signal the end. Medium-pace bowler Shailender Gehlot delayed the inevitable with 47 from 85 but with over two sessions left it was just a matter of time for Delhi to complete victory. The hosts took five points from an outright win to move to the top of Group A. Bengal 461 (Tiwary 203, Saha 111*) drew with Hyderabad 227 (Shinde 90, Lahiri 4-65) and 302 for 6 (Sai 119*, Yadav 53, Lodhgar 5-68) Scorecard Anoof Pai's unbeaten 119, his maiden first-class hundred in just third third appearance for Hyderabad, ensured a draw against Bengal at Eden Gardens. Hyderabad recovered from an overnight 86 for 3 to finish 302 for 6, with Pai and Arjun Yadav (53) getting among the runs. Left-arm spinner Murtaza Lodhgar added two wickets on the fourth day to finish with 5 for 68. Bengal took three points to Hyderabad's one. POINTS TABLE So, Round one is complete and we've had just 2 results and the rest of the matches were drawn. Does BCCI need to think about the pitches? Neither seamers nor spinners are being effective towards the end of the match. Does that show us that the pitches are completely flat or the bowlers are pure trash?

[Cricketics]

Hyderabad survived the first innings scare Bengal 461 Hyderabad 227 & 302/6 (115.0 ov) Match drawn

Happy B'day mate

[ludhianvi]

I think if you want more results, then the matches need to be extended to 5 days. Then we will see more results. Perhaps the matches are not played at Test Centers but instead are being played at other smailler grounds? Also, how come group A has eight teams while group B has only six?

[apocalypse]

Happy B'day mate

Thanks Cricketics

[Dravid]

i will wish tommo :D as for the selector..sharma didnt play.. so got 0 and shukla got me -1... thus the 5th place :P

[Chandan]

A wonderful, behind the scene round up during and after Round One of Ranji,07-08: Veterans reach landmarks Guess who's just got to 300 first-class wickets? Here's a clue: he's the second Delhi bowler after Madan Lal to reach the landmark. Well, it's Amit Bhandari and he thinks the 'achievement' doesn't prove anything. "We play on pitches where bowling even at one hundred per cent may fetch you nothing, you have to bend your backs till it hurts. My reaching this feat does not really prove anything. I think it should be used as an inspiration for this newer crop of pacers." Bhandari had a shoulder operation last year and, even as one thought the curtains were coming down on his career, he continues to surprise us. Another landmark: Pankaj Dharmani, who hit 94 against Andhra and shared a 181-run partnership with Uday Kaul to help Punjab take the vital first-innings lead, became Punjab's leading scorer in Ranji Trophy. He overhauled Vikram Rathore's 6494 and has now 6497 from 91 games at 61.87. Left in the lurch Hyderabad were in for a rude shock when they flew into Calcutta on a Friday morning for the Ranji game against Bengal. The Telegraph reported that the team was stranded for an hour at the airport before they could find a team bus to take them to the hotel. Apparently there was no local manager, hence the chaos. Their troubles, however, didn't end there. With Eden Gardens booked by the national team for a net session on the eve of the game, Hyderabad struggled to find a proper alternate venue. Vivek Jaiswal, Hyderabad's coach, said: "When we boarded the bus somebody told us that CC&FC ground was not available... so the next option was the Jadavpur University ground in Salt Lake. But when we reached there, the ground was slushy and unfit for practice. The covers were up and the nets were down. I was not ready to risk my players by training there. So eventually we had to cancel our practice and come back." Manoj Tiwary hit a double hundred but missed out on the opportunity to beat Devang Gandhi's Bengal record of 323 © Cricinfo 'It's the ego that takes over' On the field, Jaiswal pinned his hopes on VVS Laxman to repeat his Eden magic. "Laxman knows the importance of this game and I am sure he has something special in store for us." Well, Laxman was out for a duck in the first innings- three of his teammates met the same fate - and made just 18 in the second. Murtaza Lodhgar made one stop and bounce and Laxman's pull went straight to Sourasish Lahiri standing at short mid-wicket. VVS was Very Very Silent at Eden and while he avoided the media, Bharat Arun, Bengal's coach, revealed his success formula. "Laxman loves to dominate the attack, and especially when it's Eden Gardens. It's the ego that takes over...We knew that while chalking out a special strategy for him. We attacked him with a short mid-wicket and no deep mid-wicket, knowing that he loves to play in that area. It was a kind of gamble, which worked for us. It just clicked at the right time." Thanks to ICL Wriddhiman Saha would not have made his debut as Bengal's wicketkeeper this season had it not been for Deep Dasgupta's decision to cross over to the ICL. And Dasgupta was on hand to watch as Saha hit a boundary to move past 99 and emulate his feat of scoring a ton on debut. "He's a good cricketer and is doing a good job... I wish him luck," said Dasgupta who later went into the dressing room to congratulate Saha, the 15th Bengal player to score a hundred on debut. The ICL also brought joy to his team-mate Murtaza Lodhgar, the veteran left-arm spinner who got a spot to play in the place of Shib Sagar Singh who had defected to the parallel league. Lodhgar removed Laxman in the second innings and called it - surprise, surprise - a "very very special dismissal". Dravid goes down market Rahul Dravid stayed with his Karnataka team-mates at the Sea Green hotel in downtown Mumbai. While Dravid would not have thought much about the transition from five-star to a three-star hotel, the staff were delighted the former India captain chose to stay there. "Never in my tenure in this hotel have we had a celebrity of this stature as our guest," S Joseph, the receptionist, told DNA. Chintaman Mohite, a hotel waiter, looked at it differently. "He spoke to me in Marathi. I never thought that Dravid would speak so fluently." The newspaper reported that Dravid stayed in room no 103, a 'deluxe suite [which] has the best view of the vast expanse of the Arabian sea and is as airy as it can get". Then it adds: "But it can hardly match the standards in luxury most modern cricketers are used to." Ouch! Hemal Watekar is forced to retire hurt after reaching his second hundred of the match © Cricinfo 40th time lucky Hemal Watekar, Andhra's opening batsman, had just four fifties and never made a 100 from 39 first-class games before he played in this season's opener against Punjab. He vindicated the decision of the coach, former Test cricketer S Abid Ali, to play him by hitting hundreds in each innings. However, he was not allowed to linger over his accomplishment as he was hit on the nose by a bouncer from Manpreet and retired hurt at 100. End of the drought A moment to cherish for Kerala as they beat Vidarbha by 150 runs, the third time ever that they have won by such a margin. It is also their first win in almost two years. The sun is shining in the east Although Assam were crushed by Gujarat in their first-round game, things are beginning to look-up for the state team. " Give us three years and you could see an Assamese play for India," says Borah, the head coach at the Assam Cricket Association. "Five years back I wouldn't have been speaking about an exclusive cricket stadium in Assam, neither would I be watching talented 15-year-olds play three-day games. Cricket in Assam has come a long way." Run orgy Last season witnessed only two double centuries in the Elite group but we have three already in this festive season. Suresh Raina and Manoj Tiwary each scored 203 - against Orissa and Hyderabad - before Rahul Dravid lit up the Wankhede with 214, one run short of his highest Ranji Trophy score. Tiwary, competing with Raina for a middle-order spot in the national squad, chose modesty when asked whether his knock was better as it came against a stronger attack. "Orissa is a good side, and besides it's a double century. It takes a lot of determination, hard work and temperament to bat for such long hours. Whatever the attack, you cannot take that away from him [Raina]. I think we are on an even platform." Tiwary, however, missed out on the opportunity to beat Devang Gandhi's Bengal record of 323. "Devang-da had called me evening and reminded me of the record. I wanted to go for it, but I don't know what went wrong. My shot selection for that particular ball was not right and I paid the price for it. But I guess I shouldn't complain." The parsimonious mechanic Madan Yadav, Railways left-arm spinner, who is a mechanic by profession, turned in figures of 22.4-12-22-4 in the first innings against Jammu & Kashmir. He was relatively expensive in the second, giving away 12 runs in six overs as Railways routed Jammu & Kashmir by an innings and 88 runs in less than three days. The great escape Vineet Jain, with an unbeaten 3 from 36 balls, and Jayanta Debnath, with 13 from 37, added 25 valuable runs in 11.2 overs for the final wicket to stave off defeat. Hari Prasad, Services' opening bowler, took 4 for 50 and the other bowlers chipped in with wickets but Services failed to take that last wicket and Tripura finished on 202 for 9. The quotehanger So you think you are Klusener? Anil Kumble to Abhishek Nayar , after the young Mumbai batsman hit him for three successive boundaries.

[Cricketics]

The quotehanger So you think you are Klusener? Anil Kumble to Abhishek Nayar , after the young Mumbai batsman hit him for three successive boundaries.

haha classic.. btw kaptaaan saab should be easy on youngsters:haha:

[Chandan]

A superb post by Paras Mhambrey at the cricinfo blog on Indian domestic cricket: Pace getting pride of place The presence of role models like Zaheer Khan is inspiring youngsters to take up fast bowling. One of the biggest changes in domestic cricket from the time I played has been the attitude towards fast bowling. The wickets we played on were tailor-made for spinners, so the quality in fast bowling wasn't good. Most teams, barring perhaps Mumbai or Karnataka, struggled for a good pace attack. It could also have been the reason that they dominated too. Nowadays, though, almost every team has a three-seamer-one-spinner combination. Every state has a couple of young fast bowlers, who somewhere down the line represent the state side and the India Under-19 side. There are talented fast bowlers in states like Assam, not traditionally cricket nurseries, and there are people coming from lesser known places and are representing their states. I see a lot of fast bowling talent overall. There are youngsters willing to become fast bowlers, willing to put in the hard work, knowing that they won't come across many seamer-friendly tracks in India. Baroda, the team I am coaching now, have seen Zaheer Khan, Irfan Pathan, Munaf Patel and Rakesh Patel in recent times. And there are more youngsters into fast bowling. It is good to see that because it was missing a few years back. The fast bowler's workload has increased by about 50 per cent from about 10 years ago. It can be attributed to two factors, one of which is the change in the nature of wickets. You have got to make pitches that encourage the fast bowlers. Not only at the top but at the grassroots level. As a youngster, you should get an opportunity to bowl on at least some seamer-friendly wickets, so that you are attracted towards fast bowling. The other reason is the exposure nowadays. Fast bowlers are everywhere now, and they are an appealing sight. We have bowlers like Zaheer and Sreesanth, characters that inspire. I wouldn't say fast-bowling is glamorous but it appeals to those who are willing to do a lot of hard work. Added to that is the extent of technical awareness, which has completely transformed the art. The biomechanics have become very sound, there are more people who are aware of the techniques. Earlier, there used to be very few people who knew what fast bowling was, what biomechanical structure you needed to be a good fast bowler. Things have developed a lot: the youngsters now know what in-season training is and what off-season training is, what is the exact muscle that they need to work on. The result: we see a lot of fast bowlers in domestic cricket and even at the grassroots level. There is one matter of concern, though: we have very few tearaway bowlers outside the Indian team. To get the really fast bowlers, we need to work with the talent at a very young age. I have often seen coaches emphasising line and length more than the quality. Somewhere down the road we lose out on bowlers with sheer pace because of that. If a kid has the talent but is wayward, that can be worked on. At a young age, the emphasis should be on the talent and the pace and not technique, which can be groomed. I have seen at university selections, in Under-17 trials, even in my playing days, that a genuinely quick bowler who is erratic at the nets would lose out to the other guy who bowls six balls on a good line and length. That apart, fast bowling is in much better health since the time I retired. The three-one combination that most of the teams go in with is here to stay. The major difference is the awareness and, unlike the earlier days, we are not losing out on many prospective bowlers. ------------------------------------------------------ Terrific insights from a player who is a coach as well!!

[Ram]

I am upto 44/48 teams now in the Ind/Pak one.. Pathetic i know , still some progress from being last. I really did think it was bad luck that afflicted me , but i checked the Nz-Saffies series and i am 21/25 teams there. So it really does seem like i am actually VERY mediocre in this. I am a respectable 8/19 in the Ranji one though !

[Chandan]

The second round will be starting tomorrow and we'll have: Mumbai vs TN Karnataka vs HP Andhra vs UP Baroda vs Bengal Delhi vs Saurashtra Punjab vs Hyderabad Rajasthan vs Maharashtra Mumbai vs TN: Preview Tamil Nadu undaunted by Mumbai strength Kanishkaa Balachandran in Chennai November 14, 2007 R Ashwin bowled well in Tamil Nadu's rain-affected game against Maharashtra © Cricinfo Ltd Not too long ago, it was a well known fact that the team most likely to challenge Mumbai - the dominant force in domestic cricket - was Tamil Nadu. The two faced off in consecutive Ranji Trophy finals, in 2002-03 and the following season. Though Mumbai won both, it was a testimony to their respective strengths - Mumbai the nursery of Indian cricket and Tamil Nadu, with its competitive league in Chennai. The story today reflects a change in fortune for one team. While Mumbai still boast of a handful of internationals in their current set-up, the seismic changes in Tamil Nadu cannot be understated, with the nucleus of the side that finished runners-up shifting allegiances either to other states or to the Indian Cricket League. As both teams practised on Wednesday at the Guru Nanak College Ground in Chennai, the question uppermost on everybody's mind was whether a young Tamil Nadu side could hold its own against the defending champions. "Man-to-man we are just as strong as them," a confident Tamil Nadu coach, WV Raman, said when asked if Mumbai were the stronger team on paper. "We have challenged them several times in the past and it's up to the players to go out there and execute all the plans." Currently, the only player in the squad with international experience is Dinesh Karthik, ready for domestic duties after being left out of the Indian one-day squad. It must be emphasised here that Karthik was one of the success stories in England, establishing himself as a technically adept opener at the Test level. Despite those credentials, Raman said the opening combination of M Vijay and S Anirudha would not be disturbed, leaving Karthik to bolster the middle order. With Tamil Nadu set to retain the same XI that took on Maharashtra in the previous match, promising Under-19 batsman Abhinav Mukund will have to wait a little longer to play his maiden first-class match at home. Mukund, a left-handed opening batsman, was one of the batting stars of the U-19 tour to Sri Lanka, finishing as the top scorer with a double-century and a century to boot. "Abhinav has been named in the squad primarily on the back of his performances there [in Sri Lanka] and he will get his chance soon," Raman said. "With Karthik filling in as the back-up opener, we don't feel the need to have four openers in the line-up." The bowling combination, Raman said, didn't need any changes yet. "The surface we played on at Chepauk [against Maharashtra] had nothing in it for the seamers, so it wasn't ideal to analyse their performance. R Ashwin [the off spinner] bowled well so that was a plus point." While Tamil Nadu have their line-up intact, injury permitting, Mumbai will pick theirs on the morning of the match. Pravin Amre, the Mumbai coach, was non-committal about team changes, though he indicated they would continue with the policy of playing two specialist spinners in Ramesh Powar and Iqbal Abdulla. "Our combination will depend on the state of the wicket in the morning," Amre said. "It looks a good wicket to bat on as of now, and our practice session today was primarily on the batting and we talked about piling up a good score first up." Raman, more familiar with the conditions, agreed it appeared a good wicket but said it would be interesting to see if it held up for four full days. The pitch has a layer of grass on it and Amre expected a considerable portion of that to be shaved off. If the batsmen do rule on this surface, it could be the continuation of the trend of drawn games which marked the first round. Being a college ground, there's just a thin boundary rope separating the on-field players from the spectators so the media persons in the makeshift enclosure could have some additional responsibilities each time the ball heads there. Karnataka]Karnataka vs Himachal Pradesh: Preview Unpredictable wicket awaits both teams Sriram Veera in Bangalore November 14, 2007 Rahul Dravid will be aiming to get some more runs under the belt ahead of the Test series against Pakistan © Cricinfo Ltd "You can't take any team lightly these days. You don't know which bush will throw up what snake." These words, by Vijay Bharadwaj, the Karnataka coach, indicates how cautiously they are approaching the Ranji Trophy game against Himachal Pradesh. Karnataka will start as clear favourites, though: the team has Anil Kumble, who has just become the national captain, and Rahul Dravid, fresh from a double-hundred. Plus, they are playing at home. Both teams are carrying just one point from their previous games, as the batting let them down in the first innings. Karnataka collapsed against the spin of Ramesh Powar on a tricky first-day wicket against Mumbai while HP struggled against the Saurashtra spinners - Kamlesh Makvana and Rakesh Dhurv - and collapsed sensationally from 131 for 1 to 181. "It was one bad session of batting that cost us dearly," Sandeep Sharma, HP's captain, said. "But we are confident of a better show against Karnataka. Our bowling is in very good shape and I am sure the batsmen will come to the party." Sharma has reason to believe that his team won't be embarrassed. In Vikramjeet Singh Malik and Ashok Thakur, the left-arm seamer who took 11 wickets in the last game, they have a decent pace attack. And spin is their main strike weapon as they have the in-form left-arm spinner Vishal Bhatia and Sarandeep Singh, the former India offspinner who moved from Punjab to HP last season. Bhatia, who was the highest wicket-taker in the Plate league with 38 victims, and Sarandeep, who took 28 wickets last season, ensured that HP didn't lose a single game en route to becoming the Plate champions. Their batting will be led by the captain himself and he will look to the young players like Paras Dogra, wicketkeeper Maninder Bisla, and Manish Gupta to get the runs on the board. Dogra was the top scorer last season with 528 runs at 48, while Sharma, too, enjoyed a good season. They have a fairly unchanged nucleus for the last three years. "We all know each other pretty well, there are quite a few talented youngsters, and it's a very healthy attitude that prevails in our camp," Sharma said. How these youngsters adapt to the challenge of playing against the experienced Karnataka players on an untested wicket will be the key. A win while leading Karnataka would boost Anil Kumble's confidence ahead of the his first stint as India's Test captain © Getty Images The pitch is of some concern as it was recently re-laid, and just a couple of games have been played on the new surface. The top layer has been changed, with soil brought in from Kakinada, a district in Andhra Pradesh. It's anybody's guess how the track will play; some players from both teams think it will assist spinners fairly early in the game as they reckoned the top surface is quite powdery. The curator, however, is confident it will hold up for the game. "We have left a sprinkling of grass on the track and it should hold up. It should be a sporting wicket," Narayan Raju, the chief curator, told Cricinfo. "Of course it will take spin, perhaps from the end of the second day or by the third day." Both teams have said that they will bat first if the coin falls in their favour. "Since it's a newly laid track, we would look to bat first," Bharadwaj said. Dravid practised for nearly a couple of hours in the morning on the practice wickets and he would be itching to have another big knock under his belt before the Tests against Pakistan. Kumble, who was in Mumbai for the selection meeting, is expected to fly back tonight and will pair up with Sunil Joshi as Karnataka's spin weapons. The fast bowlers, Kumble will hope his fast bowlers - Vinay Kumar and NC Aiyappa, who was restricted to just one game due to an injury in the last season and bowled well only in patches in the last game - can put up a good show. Karnataka is likely to go with the same team that drew against Mumbai, while HP will finalise their playing XI tomorrow.

[Chandan]

Chopra dismissed for just 6. I think he blew away his chances to get a comeback in Indian team, even if the Delhi tracks are seamer friendly. Finally Dinesh Karthik is opening and is batting on 22* vs Agarkar and Salvi. Dravid is batting on 1*. Munaf has taken a wicket.

[Chandan]

Agarkar is back to his best--ie, leaking runs. But he has not taken a wicket either! Badrinath dismissed for a duck!!!:sad_smile: Dravid is batting on 44* Karthik on 55* Kaif on 12* Munaf has taken 3 wickets vs Rajasthan. Gagandeep is not playing (and I included him in my team after being penalised for 50 points!!:sad_smile:) And that is from the players we're watching out for!

[beetle]

54 * dravid

[chanakya]

munaf takes 4

[varun]

munaf takes 4

:two_thumbs_up::two_thumbs_up::two_thumbs_up:

[Chandan]

At Lunch, Day1, Round two: UP : 80/2 vs AP, Kaif 16* Bengal 133/0 vs Baroda Rajathan 84/7 vs Maharastra, Munaf 4 wickts Hyderabad 133/1 vs Punjab, VVS 4* Karnataka 199/1 vs HP, Dravid 54* Delhi 81/3 vs Saurastra, Dhawan 38*, Chopra 6 TN 96/4 vs Mumbai, Badri-0, Karthik 59*,Salvi 2 wkts

[beetle]

dravid 75*...... 8 ---4s 2---- 6s

[beetle]

karnataka....167/2 dravid....82*