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By Venkat

Uttar Pradesh Vs Mumbai at Lucknow (Result : Match drawn)

This was the second away match for Mumbai on the trot after they trashed traditional rivals Delhi in their own backyard. Many would have expected an easy walkover for the defending champs, but the members of the triumphant India U-19 squad and experienced players like Gyanendra Pandey gave Mumbai a torrid and gruelling time. Suresh Raina and Shivakant Shukla of the India juniors showed that thay were capable of handling Bahutule and co. The very fact that 'the Boy from Baruch' and Ramesh Powar were on India A duty, were somewhat a blow to the Mumbaikars. But Robin Morris and Bhavin Thakkar showed why Mumbai is compared to Australia in the domestic circuit. I spoke to Bahutule the captain of the team and he said "It was a good game and their youngsters like Raina came through." But the plus point for Mumbai is that the batsman, who've let them down recently struck form. Mumbai gained 2 points on virtue of the first innings lead. Mumbai next takes on Andhra Pradesh at Vijayawada on Dec 1 and Uttar Pradesh takes on Railways at Kanpur .

Uttar Pradesh 205 (Pandey 77*) and 205 for 7 (Raina 50, Bahutule 6-48) drew with Mumbai 332 (Morris 93*, Thakkar 71)

Tamil Nadu Vs West Bengal at Thirunelveli (Result : Match Drawn)

Tamil Nadu, the last year's runners-up were severly blown by players on International duty (Sadagoppan Ramesh and Lakshmipathy Balaji) and two top players on duty for India 'A' (Hemang Badani and Sridharan Sriram), also they have lost top players to Assam (S Vasant Saravanan, Rajagopal Sathish and T Arasu). The loss clearly showed as they were wayward in their approach with no Balaji to head the attack. The batting looked vulnerable to good seam bowling by S Paul of Bengal who claimed 7-44 in the first innings which enabled them to enforce the follow on. The defiance of S.Badrinath continued after his first inning knock of 86 as he notched up a career-best 190 ably supported by veteran Sarath with 101*. Tamil Nadu avoided defeat by ending up at 397/4, but losing 2 points to Bengal.
Bengal play traditional east zone rivals Assam whereas Tamil Nadu will travel to Ahmedabad to face the Gujarati challenge.

Tamil Nadu 188 (Badrinath 86, Paul 7-44) and 397 for 4 (Badrinath 190, Sharath 101*) drew with Bengal 400 (Haldipur 100, Sanyal 89)

Assam Vs Hyderabad at Guwahati (Result : Match Drawn)

Assam, along with Kerala are emerging as one of the emerging states in Indian Domestic cricket. They have made several new signings from Tamil Nadu and all of them seem to be clicking for them. Vasant Saravanan, Sukhwinder Singh and Rajagopal Sathish fed on some poor Hyderabadi bowling to notch up 537 runs. However, the visitors found some solace through Anirudh Singh, Arjun Yadav and I Khaleel of Hyderabad helped their team reach 410. Assam pouched 2 vital points while Hyderabad returns home empty handed.
Hyderabad face rival south zone team Karnataka at their home ground on Dec 1.

Hyderabad 410 for 9 (Yadav 91, Khaleel 89, Anirudh 68, Vinay 53, Konwar 6-141) drew with Assam 537 (Sathish 133*, Sukhvinder 112, Saravanan 89, Das 71)

Railways Vs Delhi (Karnal Singh Stadium) (Result : Railways won by 3 wickets)

With Aakash Chopra, Ashish Nehra and Virender Sehwag on a Kangaroo hunt down under, the Delhi side looked finished. They couldnt live upto the challenge of the Sanjay Bangar led Railways as they slumped to their worst ever season start. Their batting looked lopsided as Railways sans Murali Kartik took advantage of pores in their team. The plus point for Railways would be that theyve got the crucial win under their belt, whereas Delhi is still languishing on 2 points. Many India discards like Harvinder Singh, JP Yadav came to the party as the Railmen got to an important 3 wicket victory.
Railways plays UP next at Kanpur and Delhi faces the Dinesh Mongia-led Punjab at the Kotla.

Kerala 231 (Hemanth Kumar 66; Arothe 4/50, Patel 4/85) and 337/9 (Somasundar 93, Srikumar Nair 86; Patel 3/66) drew with Baroda 411 (R.Parab 104, Rakesh Patel 67)

 

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