Milestone men, and nervous Powar
Sidharth looks back at the highlights of the second round of the Ranji Trophy
|
|
Yusuf Pathan went into the match against Bengal with a highest score of 92* and three five-fors to his name. It must be the confidence that comes with having won the World Twenty20 on your international debut, because by the time the match got over he had taken two more five-fors, scored his personal best - 183 runs in 150 balls, and had almost single-handedly taken Baroda to an innings win. When he came in to bat, Baroda were 180 for 5 in reply to Bengal's 370 (thanks largely to his effort after Bengal were 221 for 0 at one stage), and when he left Baroda were 86 runs in the lead. Then he opened the bowling in the second innings and struck in the first over, and then four more times as Bengal were bowled out for 86.
At the Roshanara Club Ground in Delhi, Cheteshwar Pujara scored a typical grind-to-save-the-match unbeaten 148 against Delhi. Set 327 runs in a day, Saurashtra were 33 for 2 when Pujara came in to bat in the seventh over. He saw the state worsen to 107 for 8 with more than 40 overs to play. That's when he found able support from Sandeep Jobanputra. The partnership frustrated Delhi for 157 minutes and after Jobanputra got out, Sandip Maniar came in to do more of the same. Bad light helped too, as play was called off with five overs to go and a wicket still standing. So frustrated were Delhi they bowled five different bowlers for the last five overs.
After eight years of having excelled in Indian first-class cricket, Ramesh Powar was nervous going into a second-round match against Tamil Nadu in Chennai. Dropped from both the Indian ODI and Test sides, Powar, according to team-mates, was upset, kept to himself and often cursed his fate, the Indian Express reported.
|
|
Sreekumar Nair became the first triple-centurion for Kerala and only the second in Ranji Trophy overall since the 2000-01 season. Nair's unbeaten 306 against Services overtook the previous best for Kerala - 262 set by Balan Pandit in 1959.
Nair is not the only one raking in the moolah: Pankaj Dharmani, the Punjab captain and wicketkeeper, was also awarded for becoming the highest run-getter for Punjab in Ranji Trophy. After he became richer by a lakh during the lunch break on day one against Hyderabad, he showed more of the greed by getting his 8000th run in first-class cricket, when he scored his 42nd run during the second day's play.
Baroda gave the BCCI a gentle wake-up call last week. While the BCCI is still inviting applications for creating and managing its website, the Baroda Cricket Association (BCA) became the third state association in India to have a website of its own. Baroda follows the example of Mumbai and Punjab state associations: Sharad Pawar, the BCCI president is also MCA president, and MP Pandove, the BCCI joint secretary, is also the PCA joint secretary.
"Laxmi Ratan Shukla, incidentally, opened his account as a skipper. Having got out for two ducks in his previous two knocks, Shukla in his third innings as Bengal captain lasted two balls and scored one." Thus read the Telegraph's match report after Bengal lost to Baroda. They are not missing anything, are the Telegraph?
|
|
"You can't take any team lightly these days. You don't know which bush will throw up what snake."
Sidharth Monga is a staff writer at Cricinfo