Re: Meanwhile, back in the Ranjis... - Round Four begins

And Day Three.. a couple of matches seeing results already.

>
>>Bombay vs Andhra:
Overnight Bombay 504/6 declared on a nice flat track, and Andhra 15/0 in 14
overs.

Well, Andhra batted thru the entire day, and lost only 3 wickets - and they
scored a grand total of 147 runs:-)

A whole new definition to the word stonewalling - if India does indeed want to
draw in Australia, maybe we should send the entire Andhra batting lineup
(though, of course, they would then get bouncy tracks and get out, rather than
slow tracks where they could stonewall for ever :-)

But India could probably use MSK Prasad -he captains and keeps wickets for
Andhra now, and also opens the batting. He batted thru the entire day yesterday
- and made 59 runs! He has now batted 7 hours and 8 minutes for his 68*. 

At the end of D3, Andhra are 162/3, with MSK Prasad and Watekar batting. There
is no chance of them actually getting first innings points one would think -
that would require another 350 runs on the last day. But they can probably bat
out the last day quite easily, and so both sides will get 0 points from this
game. 

>>
>>Baroda vs Kerala:
>
Overnight Kerala 231, Baroda 196/4

Baroda batted on into D3 for a long while, with contributions down the line.
Mongia 31, Shatrunjay Gaekwad 43, Arothe 49, Rakesh Patel 67. Eventually Baroda
were 411 allout, a lead of 180.

Kerala thus has to bat out 4 sessions to deny Baroda an outright win. They made
an excellent start, 95/1 at the end of D3, with Somasunar 57*. Thus they are
only 85 behind now, with a day to go - if they can even bat till a little after
tea and add 200 or so more, they could be safe. Baroda will push hard for a win
though because they badly need the extra 2 points.



>
>>
>>Punjab vs Delhi:

Overnight Delhi 310, Punjab 224/2 (Yuvraj 106*, Dharmani 71*)

Punjab suffered its typical middle-order collapse on D3, but it was not enough
for Delhi. From 240/3 (when Dharmani fell for 79), to 280/5 (when Yuvraj fell
for 138) before they took the lead. But then went from 319/5 to 385 allout, a
lead of only 75. Four wickets each for Gill and Negi, and a poor 2nd game for
Kunal Lal (0/79 in 21 overs - apparently he was hit for 2 fours off the first 2
balls of the innings by Yuvraj opening the batting yesterday). 

Delhi trailed by 75 but had 25 overs of batting to end the day - one would have
expected them to come out blazing, because they badly need points from this
game and are currently in line for none after trailing on first innings. But
they scored only 72/0 in 25 overs, and still trail by 3 going into the last
day. They should be able to draw the game pretty easily, but that doesnt do
them much good - surprising they arent being more pro-active about a result.

>>
>>UP vs Railways:
>

Overnight Railways 137, UP 71, Railways148/6.

The pitch continued to be very spiteful - and Railways did a very good job of
playign team-cricket again. 

>From 148/6, Railways continued to get vital contributoins with the bat down the
line. Khanolkar 30, Wankhede 23, Harvinder 16*. Railways got 208, setting UP an
impossible 275 to win on this track. UP started positively with 59/0 for the
first wicket, but then the collapse set in as it was always going to - and they
were 122 allout to lose by a mile. 5/47 for Parida (and 10 overs, 1/12 for
Bangar).

>
>
>>
>>Bengal vs Assam:
>
Overnight Bengal 246, Assam 288/8 (Sukhvinder 77*)

Sukhvinder continued hitting on D3, doing all the scoring. Assam went from 288
to 347 allout,with the tail scoring 13 of those runs - Sukhvinder 115* by the
end. Thus Assam had a 101 run lead halfway thru D3.

Bengal came in batting veryvery slowly - Haldipur was the first wicket to fall,
at 44/1 scored in 31 overs! Then Devang Gandhi came in at #3 and started
playing shots right away, hitting 7 fours before falling for 36 (Bengal's first
50 took 34 overs, their 2nd fifty took only 9 overs). At the end of the day,
Bengal were 111/3 with Das and Shukla holding fort.

Thus a 10 run lead for Bengal going into the last day, with 7 wickets in hand.
Assam is probably in fair shape to pick up 2 points from this match - and if
Bengal happen to collapse, they might even have a chance of getting 4. Shukla
has been in very good form this season however, probably Bengal's best batsman,
so there is a ways to go for that. 


>>
>>Gujarat vs TN:
>
Overnight TN 372, Gujarat 61/3 in 41 overs.

A surprisingly good fightback by Gujarat on D3. Akash Christian and Mukund
Parmar had come together at 42/3, and they stayed together till 182, for a
140-run partnership before Christian fell for 112. Damani failed again (192/5),
and then Parmar finally fell for 82 (231/6) and Gujarat looked buried. But
their spinners Timil Patel and Bhavin Mehta ground it out for the last 25 overs
of the day, adding another 42 with some gritty batting - and Gujarat ended the
day 273/6. 

Thus this match looks almost certain to be a draw. However, Gujarat is 99
behind on first innings going into the last day - and even though it has only
tailenders left, may still harbour some small hope of squeezing out a lead and
stealing away 2 points (along with the prestigous trophy that comes from
winning the Samarth Harish Shah Bowl). 


>>
>>Hyderabad vs Karnataka:
Overnight Hyderabad 177, Karnataka 100, Hyderabad 187/6.

A quite horrendous performance from Karnataka in this match, after the first
morning session. They had Hyderabad on the ropes at 72/6 the first morning, and
let them get away to 177. Then they collapsed to 100 allout themselves, and
gave up 187/6 yesterday with some overaggressive and short-and-wide bowling on
a helpful track.

They continued their poor show with the ball on D3 - the first wicket didnt
fall till 238/7, the next till 278/8 (this latter 40 run partnership coming in
6 overs!!) They even gave up a 28-run stand to the last pair, with Venkatapathy
Raju making merry with a four and a six, before Hyderabad were 309 allout. This
set Karnataka 387 to win.

And Karnataka came out and totally collapsed in the face of that score -
falling to 89 allout in only 32 overs of batting. NP Singh, who destroyed
Karnataka in the first innings, only started the slide this time - he got the
first wicket, but ended with 8 overs, 1/16. 

This time Karnataka collapsed to the medium-pace of first-change bowler Faiz
Ahmed! Faiz Ahmed is a left-arm 25 year old medium pacer - he isnt a great
bowler by any stretch, but has pretensions as an allrounder. In 8 career Ranji
games to date, he had taken 11 wickets at an average of 65 - but had also
averaged 27 with the bat to keep himself in the team.

Faiz Ahmed came on first-change here, and bowled 10 overs on the trot - and
claimed 6/29! His previous best had been 3/73 - and in this match he had
match-figures of 8/47! 

On a grassy pitch where NP Singh said yesterday that all he really had to do
was pitch it up and swing it, the vaunted Karnataka attack did a poor job,
getting overaggressive and bowling fast and short (in the 2nd innings Prasad
had 3/98, Ganesh 3/74 - and Aiyappa went for 4/over while claiming 2/79). And
this in a game where NP Singh had match figures of 7/47, and Faiz Ahmed had
figures of 8/47! 

Karnataka fell for 100 and 89 in their 2 innings, and lost to their traditional
rivals by a whopping 297 runs. Theyre lucky they didnt bat first, else it might
have given Hyderabad a bonus point (and cost them a docked point as well). As
it is, despite this crushing loss, they are still in fair shape for the
knockouts if they can recover - they are still in a contest with Hyderabad, and
Hyderabad still has to play TN, the top team in the league. But this must
surely rank as Karnataka's worst Ranji loss in a long, long time - I cant
remember a bigger one myself.


Sadiq [ Srinath ought to play for them if he recovers, would help their side
greatly ] Yusuf