Irani Trophy , 2012

[vishalvirsingh]

hi

Harmeet has a strong case now for the national side! 4-4! What happened to Yaddu - NO WICKETS! Bist played really well in both innings against international level bowlers.

Surprised to SEE YADAV not even take a single wicket in 2nd innings.

[msb1991]

Can't Irani Trophy be played between the best 32 cricketers of the country rather than the Ranji Trophy winner versus Rest Of India? This list of 32 are the ones most likely to be on notice for selection in India colors.

One I would like to see would be a Rest of India XI much like the one we have now, pitted up against a top Ranji performers XI. Whether these are medium pacers who take wickets at 110kph or past their prime spinners is irrelevant, just pick the top performers of the last season.

[BeautifulGame]

Though Vijay showed good temperament' date=' this knock against a bunch of absolutely ordinary bowlers on a batting wicket does not prove much. Still needs to perform consistently at the Ranji level to get a look-in.[/quote'] He was dropped because he cant score away from home.But our current openers cant even score at home.So dont know what he has to prove more considering he has proved time and again he can score heavily on indian wickets and is in great confidence unlike Sehwag or Gambhir

[Lord]

He was dropped because he cant score away from home.But our current openers cant even score at home.So dont know what he has to prove more considering he has proved time and again he can score heavily on indian wickets and is in great confidence unlike Sehwag or Gambhir

u mean Gambhir/Sehwag wont score against Rajasthan attack?

[BeautifulGame]

u mean Gambhir/Sehwag wont score against Rajasthan attack?

The point is they didnt play so that question becomes meaningless. Sehwag and Gambhir will come into the England series on awful form behind them and Vijay is on great confidence. An inform Vijay is much better than Shewag or Gambhir in poor form in Indian wkts.And Vijay has already proven record against Strong international teams in Indian conditions too.Its not like scoring against Rajastan was his only qualification

[Lord]

The point is they didnt play so that question becomes meaningless. Sehwag and Gambhir will come into the England series on awful form behind them and Vijay is on great confidence. An inform Vijay is much better than Shewag or Gambhir in poor form in Indian wkts.

in form Vijay coz he got one knock against gr8 Rajasthan bowlers:hysterical::hysterical: heard about a thing called consistency?

[BeautifulGame]

in form Vijay coz he got one knock against gr8 Rajasthan bowlers:hysterical::hysterical: heard about a thing called consistency?

Yep scoring 260 is bad form :hysterical::hysterical::hysterical::hysterical:

[Magneto]

Yep scoring 260 is bad form :hysterical::hysterical::hysterical::hysterical:

See even if one of Gambhir/Sehwag is dropped, Rahane will be drafted in. He's ahead of Vijay now in pecking order.

[BeautifulGame]

See even if one of Gambhir/Sehwag is dropped' date=' Rahane will be drafted in. He's ahead of Vijay now in pecking order.[/quote'] Rahane definitely deserves to be in ahead of Vijay.

[Magneto]

Rahane definitely deserves to be in ahead of Vijay.

Vijay needs one good season in domestic cricket to prove that he's still there. Last year he was quite average.

[jind]

Looks like Harmeet didn't feel too out of place.. picked up a few wickets. While he has gotten a place in the ROI squad, I wonder if he can get a place in the starting XI for Mumbai. Btw, rather than having past year's winners play ROI, India A and India B would offer a better contest

[Chandan]

What's the point of the Irani Cup? With one-sided matches in recent times, a tight domestic calender and more India A tours, the Irani Cup seems to have lost its context Siddarth Ravindran in Bangalore September 24, 2012 Players such as Shikhar Dhawan, having performed well in the Irani Trophy, have been found wanting in more demanding stages, such as India A's tour of the Caribbean The Irani Cup's slide towards irrelevance continued with a four-day thrashing of the Ranji champions at the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore. It didn't need an expert to predict how this match would pan out: Rest of India comprehensively dominated a Rajasthan side that lacked firepower in both batting and bowling to compete. "This time I am pretty happy with the way we have faced the Rest of India," Rajasthan captain Hrishikesh Kanitkar said, despite the innings-and-79-run mauling, highlighting the difference in quality between the two sides. "I think it gives us a slight advantage over other teams since we have already played one first-class game. I think we should be building up on that and not thinking about the result for Rest of India was definitely a stronger team." While this year Rajasthan were hamstrung by the absence of four important players, including two on the concurrent India A tour of New Zealand, the Irani Cup has mostly been one-way traffic in recent times. Rajasthan were battered by 404 runs in the previous season, and even Mumbai, traditionally the pre-eminent team on the Indian domestic circuit, were pummelled by 361 runs in 2010. In the past 14 years, the winners of the Ranji Trophy have added the Irani Cup to their collection on only two occasions. It wasn't always so lopsided. When the Irani Trophy was conceived in 1959-60, the domestic scene was ruled by an all-conquering Bombay team that was just beginning its run of 15 consecutive Ranji title wins. Much of the cricketing talent in the following decades came from the big centres such as Bombay, Delhi and Karnataka. In recent years, talent isn't as concentrated in one state side, with players emerging from smaller towns all over the country. That has contributed to weaker Ranji winners, stronger Rest of India teams and fewer close contests. The Irani Trophy was also once a stage for staking a claim for a national berth; it is unlikely performances in the tournament carry as much weight as before. Cashing in against the military-medium of Deepak Chahar and Aniket Choudhary hardly shows how well-equipped you are to face Stuart Broad and James Anderson. No one would bat an eyelid if you score a century; to have any sort of impact a gigantic effort is required, such as M Vijay's ten-hour 266. The BCCI's added emphasis on A tours from this year also bring in series which will provide a better picture of a player's ability. The A team tour of the Caribbean earlier this year proved unproductive for several players who've built up enviable domestic records. One of them is Shikhar Dhawan, who plundered twin 150-plus in last year's Irani Cup, but only scratched out 30 runs at 7.50 against West Indies A. Another reason which makes the Irani Trophy pointless is the mushrooming of Twenty20 tournaments, which have to be factored into the domestic calendar. While the IPL provides a strict marker for when the state-based tournaments must end, the Syed Mushtaq Ali and the Champions League Twenty20 have to be squeezed into prime domestic cricket time. That has meant packing in matches as tightly as possible. Even as recently as 2004-05, players got, on an average, at least five days between each Ranji Trophy first-class match. Last year, it was down to three, as the teams raced through the Ranji season. With the new three-tier system, every team will play more first-class matches - a welcome development - but it tightens the calendar further. The context-free match, with the Rest of India having assembled for just a week, didn't even serve as a lead-up to the first-class season for the Ranji champions, and has passed its use-by-date. =================================================== Why can'y we scrap Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 tournament? Isn't it a needless one taking time? And IPL can be be shortened too with less number of matches as 7 weeks long tournament with 9=10 teams becomes a yawn-fest! A 5 week tournament with 8 teams will be the best.

[Crookbond]

One I would like to see would be a Rest of India XI much like the one we have now' date=' pitted up against a top Ranji performers XI. Whether these are medium pacers who take wickets at 110kph or past their prime spinners is irrelevant, just pick the top performers of the last season.[/quote'] Exactly my point - top 32 players get selected irrespective of which zone they belong too. Somehow it makes sense to me. The current Irani Trophy setup is more like the Australia versus Rest of The World Test matches by ICC in 2005.

[Magneto]

What's the point of the Irani Cup? With one-sided matches in recent times, a tight domestic calender and more India A tours, the Irani Cup seems to have lost its context Siddarth Ravindran in Bangalore September 24, 2012 Players such as Shikhar Dhawan, having performed well in the Irani Trophy, have been found wanting in more demanding stages, such as India A's tour of the Caribbean The Irani Cup's slide towards irrelevance continued with a four-day thrashing of the Ranji champions at the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore. It didn't need an expert to predict how this match would pan out: Rest of India comprehensively dominated a Rajasthan side that lacked firepower in both batting and bowling to compete. "This time I am pretty happy with the way we have faced the Rest of India," Rajasthan captain Hrishikesh Kanitkar said, despite the innings-and-79-run mauling, highlighting the difference in quality between the two sides. "I think it gives us a slight advantage over other teams since we have already played one first-class game. I think we should be building up on that and not thinking about the result for Rest of India was definitely a stronger team." While this year Rajasthan were hamstrung by the absence of four important players, including two on the concurrent India A tour of New Zealand, the Irani Cup has mostly been one-way traffic in recent times. Rajasthan were battered by 404 runs in the previous season, and even Mumbai, traditionally the pre-eminent team on the Indian domestic circuit, were pummelled by 361 runs in 2010. In the past 14 years, the winners of the Ranji Trophy have added the Irani Cup to their collection on only two occasions. It wasn't always so lopsided. When the Irani Trophy was conceived in 1959-60, the domestic scene was ruled by an all-conquering Bombay team that was just beginning its run of 15 consecutive Ranji title wins. Much of the cricketing talent in the following decades came from the big centres such as Bombay, Delhi and Karnataka. In recent years, talent isn't as concentrated in one state side, with players emerging from smaller towns all over the country. That has contributed to weaker Ranji winners, stronger Rest of India teams and fewer close contests. The Irani Trophy was also once a stage for staking a claim for a national berth; it is unlikely performances in the tournament carry as much weight as before. Cashing in against the military-medium of Deepak Chahar and Aniket Choudhary hardly shows how well-equipped you are to face Stuart Broad and James Anderson. No one would bat an eyelid if you score a century; to have any sort of impact a gigantic effort is required, such as M Vijay's ten-hour 266. The BCCI's added emphasis on A tours from this year also bring in series which will provide a better picture of a player's ability. The A team tour of the Caribbean earlier this year proved unproductive for several players who've built up enviable domestic records. One of them is Shikhar Dhawan, who plundered twin 150-plus in last year's Irani Cup, but only scratched out 30 runs at 7.50 against West Indies A. Another reason which makes the Irani Trophy pointless is the mushrooming of Twenty20 tournaments, which have to be factored into the domestic calendar. While the IPL provides a strict marker for when the state-based tournaments must end, the Syed Mushtaq Ali and the Champions League Twenty20 have to be squeezed into prime domestic cricket time. That has meant packing in matches as tightly as possible. Even as recently as 2004-05, players got, on an average, at least five days between each Ranji Trophy first-class match. Last year, it was down to three, as the teams raced through the Ranji season. With the new three-tier system, every team will play more first-class matches - a welcome development - but it tightens the calendar further. The context-free match, with the Rest of India having assembled for just a week, didn't even serve as a lead-up to the first-class season for the Ranji champions, and has passed its use-by-date. =================================================== Why can'y we scrap Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 tournament? Isn't it a needless one taking time? And IPL can be be shortened too with less number of matches as 7 weeks long tournament with 9=10 teams becomes a yawn-fest! A 5 week tournament with 8 teams will be the best.

How can you scrap the only inter-state T20 tournament that we have? The IPL is no replacement for it. Scrap the Deodhar instead. Completely useless tournament.

[Crookbond]

Scrap Deodhar and make Irani Trophy more useful by selecting the 32 best players in the country who are on notice for India colors.

[jind]

[ Why can'y we scrap Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 tournament? Isn't it a needless one taking time? And IPL can be be shortened too with less number of matches as 7 weeks long tournament with 9=10 teams becomes a yawn-fest! A 5 week tournament with 8 teams will be the best.

IPL isn't getting any shorter. Btw, more importantly, what are your thoughts on the new Ranji format?

[Chandan]

IPL isn't getting any shorter. Btw, more importantly, what are your thoughts on the new Ranji format?

New Ranji format is providing more FC matches to teams. But how it will unfold will be know through the season. I was disappointed at the point system though. I though there was an opportunity and they could have given much more importance to outright win. 1st inning lead just reduces the Ranji matches into farce!

[jind]

New Ranji format is providing more FC matches to teams. But how it will unfold will be know through the season. I was disappointed at the point system though. I though there was an opportunity and they could have given much more importance to outright win. 1st inning lead just reduces the Ranji matches into farce!

Yeah, teams will play more matches, however, I feel the competition might have been diluted with the 9 teams each in groups A and B. What his expansion of groups has done is that a few teams from the plate division have been included in groups A and B and in my opinion diluting the competition a bit. It is pretty much a tough tradeoff that they made... increased matches but diluted the group stage competition. Other option was to have best 9 teams in group A and the other teams go in group B from last year's Elite division and and the remaining 3 spots go to the top 3 teams in the plate division. Top 4 teams from Group A advance, 2 from group B, and 2 from group C. Some may think that the knockouts would've been skewed and the competition diluted in the knockout stages with 4 teams from groups B and C playing but then you'd expect the group A teams to knock them out and advance to the semis :dontknow: Even in the current scenario 2 teams from the plate division qualify to the knockouts if I'm not mistaken.