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Ranji Trophy Super League 2009-10: Round Three
By Chetan Narula
Group A
Tamil Nadu (521 for 9 dec) beat Punjab (228 and 248) by an innings and 45 runs at Amritsar
Victory against Punjab at Amritsar meant that Tamil Nadu went top of Group A. They were threatening last season but have transformed into contenders over the course of the year. Punjab batted first but were shot out for 228 with only Pankaj Dharmani (83) getting any worthwhile runs. Murali Vijay then, released from the India Test squad, made full use of some time in the middle scoring 148 runs while skipper Dinesh Karthik also impressed with 117, as the visitors racked up 521 for 9 declared. jumped into top spot by completing a convincing victory over Punjab in Amritsar. Punjab were in deep trouble at the start of the second innings, reduced to 65 for 4, and needed to bat out the remainder of the match just to save it. R Ashwin took his sixth five-wicket haul in his Ranji career and is fast moving up the queue for spin options.
Mumbai 162 (Malik 6-33) and 335 for 7 dec (Agarkar 102*, Jaffer 54, Abdullah 52, Rahane 50) beat Himachal Pradesh 246 (Thakkar 88, Abdulla 4-48, Harmeet 4-89) and 166 (Harmeet 3-38, Abdulla 3-61) by 85 runs at Mumbai
Mumbai completed a dramatic come-from-behind victory over Himachal Pradesh to move to joint-second in their group. After Vikramjeet Mallik took 6 for 33 to bowl them out for 162 in their first innings, it seemed HP would do well to garner full points against the champions. But 17-year old Harmeet Singh and 19-year old Iqbal Abdullah shared eight wickets between them to stop the hosts at 246 in their first innings. Ajit Agarkar showed then why he has a Test century at Lord’s to his name as he scored his third First-Class ton, helping his side to 335 for 7 declared in the second innings. Thanks to this much better batting effort, Mumbai were able to set HP 248 runs to win. The two teenage spinners then combined further for six wickets to bowl the hosts to an 85 run win, their first of the season.
Railways (307) drew with Orissa (132 for 4) at Bhubaneswar
The first day of the match saw V Cheluvaraj score a slow half-century. He took up 282 deliveries to get to 88 runs as Railways made 307 runs spread over four days. That was because rain wiped out the second and third days’ play. Once two days of the match were washed out, a draw seemed the only result possible from them onwards. Orissa's batsmen then crawled to 132 in 79 overs; equally slow as highlighted by Pravanjan Mullick's innings, he needed 76 balls to compile 14 runs.
Hyderabad (236 and 2 for 0) drew with Gujarat (536) at Hyderabad
It was another rain affected match at Hyderabad and vital time was lost for play. Half centuries from Ambati Rayudu (60), Anirudh Singh (61) and Syed Quadri (52) helped the hosts to 236 but in truth some one needed to go on and get a bigger score. That is exactly what Gujarat did as riding on Rujul Bhatt's maiden century - which he nearly converted into a double - powered Gujarat to a massive 300-run lead before they were bowled out. Skipper Parthiv Patel was yet again amongst the runs scoring 105, as the match petered out to a draw.
Group B
Bengal (324 and 213 for 6) drew with Karnataka (523 for 9 dec) at Mysore
It was a clash of the top two teams in Group B as Karnataka took on Bengal. The visitors batted first with opener Rohan Banerjee scoring 107 and Manoj Tiwary propping up the middle order with 78. That however turned out to be too few for the hosts as they romped their way to 523 for 9 declared. That innings had three centuries with opener KB Pawan (134), Amit Verma (157) and CM Gautam (108 not out), all crossed the three figure mark giving their team a lead of 199 runs and leaving Bengal an entire day to bat out to save the game. Deep Dasgupta (55) and Manoj Tiwary (65 not out) responded with half-centuries to deny the group leaders an outright win.
Maharashtra (289 and 162 for 5) drew with Saurashtra (544 for 3 dec) at Rajkot
Saurashtra took advantage of near perfect batting conditions at Rajkot as they raised a mammoth total after winning the toss and electing to bat first. Cheteswara Pujara returned to his 2008-09 form, scoring a double ton as Ravindra Jadeja (122 not out), Shitanshu Kotak (103) and Chirag Pathak (90) also made use of the good conditions as the hosts ended with 544 for 3 declared. From there, only two results were possible and it seemed that Mahrashtra were in for some disappointment as their first innings folded at 289, only opener Rohan Bhosale (82) putting up some resistance. Following on, Kedar Jadhav fought on with 111 not out, helping his side force a draw as Saurashtra had to be content with three points.
Baroda (234 and 331) drew with Uttar Pradesh (240 and 8 for 1) at Ghaziabad
The first day of the match saw no play as overnight rain water found its way onto the pitch and time was spent trying to dry the wet track. Baroda batted first on day two and half centuries from Rakesh Solanki and Irfan Pathan saw them to 234. Uttar Pradesh replied in similar fashion, just about reaching the mark set and crossing it by six runs, thanks to Piyush Chawla’s 65 who had earlier also taken 4 wickets for 47. After that the match headed to a dull finale. Baroda got some fine batting practice as opener Connor Williams missed out on what would have been his 18th first-class century by four runs and Yusuf Pathan made amends for the first innings duck, blasting a 79-ball 78 to muscle Baroda past 300.
© Cricket World 2009
