Ranji Trophy - Super League 2009-2010 - Discussion thread

[Shane]

we are going to see mumbai vs karnataka final:eyedance:

My worst nightmare has come true! :((

[urbestfriend]

My worst nightmare has come true! :((

Not yet, You are getting ahead of yourself.:haha:

[jusarrived]

I can see an innings victory against UP . again :D

[Zelig]

Wall-D & Nayar:hatsoff:

[Feed]

Ranji Trophy: Mumbai in driver's seat against Delhi Abhishek Nayar's 156 coupled with a sedate 69 by Iqbal Abdulla to give holders Mumbai firm control of their Ranji Trophy semi-final match against long-time rivals Delhi on the second day in Mumbai. More...

[coffee_rules]

My worst nightmare has come true! :((

Why so? The best 2 teams meeting in the final will be a great domestic game to watch.

[cowboysfan]

Why so? The best 2 teams meeting in the final will be a great domestic game to watch.

he is a fence sitter(like the french):giggle:

[Guest Hiten.]

My worst nightmare has come true! :((

True test of your character :finger:.

[coffee_rules]

If Karnataka makes it to Finals, it will be without Dravid. Ranji finals start on Jan 11. First test in BD starts on Jan 17th. I don't think he will be allowed to reach BD just on the eve of the first test. I hope he is dropped from the test squad to BD just so that he can play in the finals and win it for Kar.

[Guest Hiten.]

If Karnataka makes it to Finals' date=' it will be without Dravid. Ranji finals start on Jan 11. First test in BD starts on Jan 17th. I don't think he will be allowed to reach BD just on the eve of the first test. I hope he is dropped from the test squad to BD just so that he can play in the finals and win it for Kar.[/quote'] Gathering all the reasons that can be used as excuse(s), eh ? :potstir:

[cowboysfan]

If Karnataka makes it to Finals' date=' it will be without Dravid. Ranji finals start on Jan 11. First test in BD starts on Jan 17th. I don't think he will be allowed to reach BD just on the eve of the first test. I hope he is dropped from the test squad to BD just so that he can play in the finals and win it for Kar.[/quote'] we can beat them without dravid.

[urbestfriend]

If Karnataka makes it to Finals' date=' it will be without Dravid. Ranji finals start on Jan 11. First test in BD starts on Jan 17th. I don't think he will be allowed to reach BD just on the eve of the first test. I hope he is dropped from the test squad to BD just so that he can play in the finals and win it for Kar.[/quote'] I hope Jaffer , nohit sharma , Rahane,sir aggy and powar will be selected for the test squad for BD tour.These guys truly deserve a chance for their wonderful performance in the ranji season:dance:

[coffee_rules]

Gathering all the reasons that can be used as excuse(s)' date=' eh ? :potstir:[/quote'] :--D :finger: Mumbai for getting a bye in the QFs, otherwise they should have met Delhi in QFs.

[jusarrived]

we can beat them without dravid.

exactly , Dravids played just 2-3 matches and no team has bothered us

[Shane]

Why so? The best 2 teams meeting in the final will be a great domestic game to watch.

Its (Janm Bhumi + Karm Bhumi) v/s (Love Bhumi) These are the only two teams/states/city I care in the entire country, so as cbf said, firmly on the fence! :D But, but UP :hehe: Jai Dilli :hehe:

[Dravid]

aggy in good batting form, bring hiim back B-> but karnataka will win, pandey 200 :icflove:

[saneindian]

What a pity to see such pata wickets for such crucial domestic matches. In the Mumbai vs Delhi match, barring Ishant Sharma not one bowler bowled a delivery over 130 kmph. All were in the range of 120-125 kpmh. Very very mediocre stuff really. The UP vs Karnataka match isnt being shown live so not sure at what speed are the likes of RPS, PK and Mithun bowling there.

[graphic23]

Dravid and his cronies going down! B->

575/7 dec. Dravid 209* :phehehe:

[Chandan]

Ranji trophy semifinal, Day two Mumbai have Delhi on the mat There is a reason why many teams are said to be wary of playing Mumbai in Ranji Trophy knockout games. On Monday, it was Delhi's turn to realise this. Mumbai proved to be as mighty as its imposing account in the Ranji Trophy championship. The home team was doughty and unyielding on the second day of the semifinals at the Brabourne Stadium on Monday. The best form of defence against Mumbai is attack. From their past experiences of facing them, Delhi should have known this fact better than anyone else. They still have time and reserves to show some spunk after ending the second day’s play of the Ranji Trophy semi-final at 85 for three chasing Mumbai’s first innings total 500. From hereon, it may be a mountain to climb, but to spout a cliché, cricket is a game of glorious uncertainties. The fact, however, remains that Delhi had come into the match with an ultra defensive mindset. The idea of playing four specialist bowlers, including a rookie 17-year-old left-arm spinner will haunt them for long. The strategy hurt them for second day running. Mumbai began the day at the Cricket Club of India at 329 for four, with Abhishek Nayar and Ajit Agarkar at the crease. To their advantage Delhi had a fairly new ball at their disposal. Their best bet was Ishant Sharma. He, bowling straight and fast, made optimum use of the pitch that was without protection from 7 a.m. He forced a confident Agarkar to play a shot that went straight to Mithun Manhas at cover. The India discard did start well when he had Agarkar (63) caught by Mithun Manhas at covers playing uppishly. This was also the period when it looked that Delhi bowlers had been successful in executing the choke-trick on Mumbai. A 7-2 off side field was set and for the first 25-odd minutes and 17 deliveries Nayar wasn’t allowed to open his account for the day. Sharma’s partner from the other end Parvinder Awana was also able to keep it tight. Abhishek Nayar added a mere nine runs to his overnight 111 in nearly one-and-a quarter hours leading to the first drinks break. Mumbai managed just 37 runs in 14 overs, but behind the clock on the over-rate, Delhi conceded much ground in the second hour when Bhatia brought in left-arm spinner Vikas Mishra and left-arm seamer Pradeep Sangwan. Ramesh Powar joined Nayar and soon made his intentions clear by hitting Ishant for a boundary. But Mishra cut short Powar’s (16) stay when he beat him in flight and the ball disturbed the stumps. Found wanting The score at this point was 367-6. Delhi were still in the game at this stage. But once again they were found wanting. The scorecard might show that Mishra ended with four wickets but his inexperience showed when he bowled to left-handers Nayar and Iqbal Abdulla (69). Captain Rajat Bhatia, however, defended his decision to go in with a green horn in a game as big as this. “It was better to go with Mishra who had taken fiver in the quarter-final than a bowler (Chetanya Nanda) who was coming out of injury,” he said. Mishra’s attempt to toss the ball was dealt with disdain when Abdulla hit him over the head. When he tried to bowl a bit quicker through the air, Abdulla swept him to the fence. Abdulla and Nayar put on a 50-run partnership in just 51 balls. Abdulla danced down the pitch to attack Vikas and employed the sweep shot and cut. The pair added 74 runs for the seventh wicket and it was broken when Nayar (156, 230b, 12x4, 3x6) holed out to Ishant at mid-wicket off Vikas. There was some consolation for Mishra when Nayar (156) failed to clear the long-on boundary and Ishant pouched him.. Delhi might have thought of wrapping up the Mumbai tail in a jiffy. But their spirits were further deflated with another fifty-run partnership between Abdulla and Usman Malvi (20). The ninth-wicket stand between Abdulla (69, 117b, 8x4) and Malvi further frustrated Delhi before Vikas brought an end to Mumbai’s first innings. This isn’t the first time that Abdulla had made a vital contribution. He averages an astounding 62 after scoring 248 runs including three half-hundreds. Not bad for someone who bats at eight. “I have worked on my batting this season. But I am concentrating more on my bowling because that’s what is my strength,” Abdulla said. Friendly track When the Mumbai bowlers began their work it seemed that the track and the condition had suddenly changed from what they were when Delhi was bowling. Ajit Agarkar welcomed Delhi batsmen with some aggressive bowling. In the first over, one of his short-pitched deliveries hit opener Mayank Tehlan on the helmet. If that ball pegged the visitors on to the back foot, they stayed there for a long time. At the other end, Usman Malvi bowled a probing line, inviting the batsmen to drive. Malvi moved one off the seam and it was enough to find the edge of Mayank Tehlan’s bat. Aditya Jain had little clue of a Agarkar in-swing that trapped him right in front. While Dhawan played a few sparkling drives and pulls at one end, the experienced Mithun Manhas on the other was castled by Avishkar Salvi. And when Avishkar Salvi crashed into Manhas’s stumps, Delhi were looking at the wrong end of the barrel at 35-3. It could have been four had Wasim Jaffer held on to a low catch at first slip off Salvi. If Delhi have to make a comeback they will have to find their own Nayars, Agarkars and Abdullas. Anyone out there? Repair work Shikhar Dhawan and Rajat Bhatia stopped a ruthless Mumbai in the last hour with play extended by 30 minutes for the second day running to make up for Delhi’s abysmal over-rate. Mumbai bowlers made the best of post-tea conditions to knock back three wickets. Delhi were 85 for three in reply to the hosts’ 500 at the end of Day II of the Ranji Trophy semi-final here at the Cricket Club of India. With two more days to go, Delhi still have plenty of time to claw back into the game. Their hopes rest with Shikhar Dhawan, who showed sublime touch as he added 50 runs with captain Rajat Bhatia in an unbroken stand. But for now, Mumbai have them on the mat.

[Chandan]

Ranji trophy semifinal, Day two Dravid’s gem grinds UP down 'n puts them in a corner With their inspirational skipper in the forefront, Karnataka took the Ranji Trophy semifinal by the scruff of the neck. Rahul Dravid will be cutting his 37th birthday cake next Monday. The middle-order stalwart continues to show that age is just a number. Rahul Dravid came into the last-four showdown against last year’s finalists Uttar Pradesh as one of only two Karnataka top-order batsmen without a century this season. On a warm Monday at the Chinnaswamy stadium, the prolific right-hander set the record straight with a monumental double hundred, an epic compilation noteworthy both for its conception and its execution. Constructing edifices comes naturally to Rahul Dravid. And the Karnataka skipper’s unbeaten 209 (340b, 26x4, 1x6) that melded adhesiveness and aesthetics helped the host declare its first innings at 575 for seven in 176 overs against Uttar Pradesh in the Ranji Trophy semifinal at the Chinnaswamy Stadium here on Monday. Karnataka’s plan upon winning toss was to pile up the runs and transfer pressure on to Uttar Pradesh. Dravid’s fifth Ranji double ton ensured that plan was implemented flawlessly as Karnataka declared their first innings closed at 575 for seven. At close on the second day, Uttar Pradesh was wobbling at 11 for two in reply. Three century stands Dravid’s 17th Ranji century and, to be specific, his fifth double century in the premier domestic tournament, also lent brick and mortar to three century partnerships — 100 for the sixth wicket with Amit Verma (42), 107 for the seventh wicket with C.M. Gautam (44) and an unfinished 101 for the eighth wicket with Sunil Joshi (41 n.o.). There were handsome contributions through the order – the lowest by a specialist bat was Robin Uthappa’s 32 – but it needed one defining innings to propel Karnataka to a commanding position. Not surprisingly, that defining knock came from the broad willow of a big-match player who has made rising to the occasion a very unique trait. A week shy of his 37th birthday, Dravid seldom put a foot wrong. For one Praveen Kumar over in his 70s, he was troubled more by the lack of bounce in the strip than the bowler’s skills. Apart from that, he was almost always in supreme control, happy to play his strokes and determined to cash in on time spent gauging the track on the first day. Dravid’s approach to first-class cricket has been no less intense than to international cricket. There might have been moments when on Monday, by his own jocular admission, the cool comfort of the dressing room would have appeared a welcome proposition; as things turned out, had Dravid pursued that line of thought, it would have been UP who would have welcomed that development. The day began fairly brightly for Mohammad Kaif’s men when R Vinay Kumar was adjudged leg before by Sanjay Hazare off the hard-working Rudra Pratap Singh inside the first 25 minutes. From there, however, things went dramatically south for Uttar Pradesh as Dravid associated himself in successive century stands with Verma, CM Gautam and Sunil Joshi, each holding his own and making sure the skipper wasn’t left to play a lone hand. Dravid survived a scare when he nearly chopped Praveen Kumar onto his stumps. His partner Verma, however, fatally lurched forward to Chawla but thankfully Gautam easily slipped into the supporting role. As the shadows lengthened, Dravid drove Bhuvneshwar for four to usher in his double ton and after clattering a straight six, signalled the declaration besides waving to his wife and child in the Members Stand. An already forgettable day for Kaif was further soured when square-leg umpire K Hariharan called the UP skipper for ‘chucking.’ Unconquered vigil Dravid’s unconquered eight-hour vigil was noteworthy not merely for how many runs he made, but also for the manner in which he got his young charges to put their heads down and bat the team into a win-win situation. Verma was a bundle of nerves to start with, especially unsure of where his off-stump was, while Gautam’s desperation to shed a string of low scores was all too obvious. The captain guided both young men through initial uncertainty, and to their credit, the two responded admirably during respective stands of 100 and 107, both of which ended through ill-advised adventurism. Joshi played his part in a further stand of 101 when the declaration came, a little after Dravid creamed Bhuvneshwar through covers for his 200, and celebrated it with a straight six that clattered into the press box. UP under pressure The seven overs that UP faced were a test they failed to negotiate as two wickets fell in the space of five deliveries with paceman A Mithun on fire. When stumps were drawn, UP in their first innings were 11 for two, all scored by opener Tanmay Srivastav with skipper Md Kaif (0) managing to survive. Shivkanth Shukla (0), who had a horrid time negotiating Mithun’s first over, failed to beat Amit Verma’s direct hit while Bhuvaneshwar Kumar was struck plumb in front by Mithun, the ball keeping low too. Shivakant Shukla’s needless run out courtesy a direct hit from point by Amit Verma was followed almost instantaneously by A Mithun beating night watchman Bhuvneshwar Kumar for pace and trapping him in front to round off an excellent day for Karnataka, who have every reason to believe that they have one foot already in next week’s title clash. UP do have their task cut out and it will take enormous effort from the visiting batsmen to challenge Karnataka’s total. Wanted to tire the UP bowlers out, says Dravid Dravid (209 n.o., 500m, 340b, 26x4, 1x6) will not be available for the final – Test duty in Bangladesh beckons – so he steeled himself to do the best possible under the circumstances, which was to steer his team into a position of great strength. The game was delicately poised with the second day’s play began with Karnataka on 255 for four; Dravid’s masterpiece decisively tilted the scales in the hosts’ favour. It was a typically methodical compilation from one of India’s most prolific batsmen, an innings that has all but secured Karnataka’s berth in the showpiece final next week. “After having won the toss, it was important to put up a big total on the board,” Dravid said on Monday evening, looking every bit knackered as a batsman who has spent 500 minutes in the middle would. “We got stuck in yesterday, but I am happy to make it count today.” Dravid’s Ranji record is impressive, to say the least. In 48 matches, he has made more than 4875 runs at 81.25, extraordinary figures especially given that his domestic appearances have become increasingly sporadic in recent times. He has batted in more demanding conditions against attacks far more incisive than this UP one, but Dravid admitted that it wasn’t easy out in the middle on a low, slow Chinnaswamy stadium strip. “Definitely, scoring wasn't easy,” he acknowledged. “The ball was keeping low and there was not much pace off the wicket. Manish batted brilliantly yesterday to set up the tempo and a couple of guys up front too contributed well. The idea was to tire the bowlers out. Personally, I am quite satisfied with my innings. It was quite warm out in the middle. Whenever I decided to step up the pace, somebody got out at the other end, so I had to stay there and build another partnership.” Dravid said things had gone perfectly to plan on day two. “The basic idea was to bowl seven-eight overs at them. The last thing one wants to do after a long, tiring day on the field is to bat for that short period. Being a number three myself, I know that can be quite frustrating. “There are quite a few rough areas on the wicket. Joe (Sunil Joshi) is going to be quite useful, we are looking up to the pacers as well,” Dravid remarked. “But I think Joe will get good purchase on this wicket.”