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Ranji Trophy 2004/05 - 6th Round Summary |
A Review of the 6th
Round of Ranji Trophy by BV Swagath
The Sixth Round of matches
in the Elite League got underway on the 22nd of
December.
Here is a review of the matches that took place
on the 22nd of December to the 25th of December at various
venues across the country.
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Mumbai Vs Karnataka
at Mumbai
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Defending champs Mumbai had the Sujith
Somasunder led Karnataka team for their 6th
round game at the Wankhede. Mumbai won the toss
and got off to a bad start but the innings got a
shape with a century stand between Vinayak Mane
and Vinit Indulkar. Once the partnership was
broken, the floodgates seemed to have opened as
Test discard and left arm spinner Sunil Joshi
just ran through the Mumbai innings. As Joshi
kept on controlling things at one end, it was
only matter of time before Mumbai got all out
for 292. Joshi had figures of 6/102, for the
home side, Nishit Shetty top-scored with 65. It
was a challenge for the Mumbai bowlers to bowl
Karnataka within 292 to prove their champion
material. And they did it in great style through
the off spin of Ramesh Powar (4/90) and Nilesh
Kulkarni (5/39). Karnataka were packed off for a
paltry 166, only the knocks by the two openers
Robin Uthappa (39) and Rowland Barrington were
the bright spots. Karnataka threw away the
initiative after bowling out Mumbai for 292.
They again threw away the golden opportunity of
staging an upset when they had Mumbai reeling
down at 67/6. At this stage Mumbai's most
experienced all-rounders skipper Sairaj Bahutle
and Ramesh Powar put on 117 runs for the 7th
wicket to take away the match from Karnataka.
Mumbai declared at 249/8 giving a tough target
of 414 and Karnataka gave away the match without
a fight. They were bowled out for 185 thanks to
a five wicket haul from Pawar.
Scorecard
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Andhra Vs Railways
at Anantapur
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Andhra were a side minus
their skipper M.S.K.Prasad who was out with a
fracture on his leg. The Rural Development Trust
Stadium in Anantapur was the surprise venue for
this match. Andhra did incredibly well to bowl
out Railways for just 263 as the Railways
batsmen failed to capitalize on their starts.
Venugopal Rao rolled his arm to take four vital
wickets and for Railways, Sanjay Bangar,
Tejinder and Raja Ali scored 40s. The homeside
gave away the golden opportunity of building up
a huge lead and were shot out for just 202.
Railways in their second innings scored 270/4
before declaring their innings; they were well
served by a 177 run opening stand between Amit
Pagnis (145) and Sanjay Bangar (51). Chasing
332, Andhra batsmen succumbed to the pressure
and their innings folded at 198 with only Satya
Kumar Varma batting well to score a half
century. The medium pace of Jai Prakash Yadav
did the damage as he picked up four wickets.
Railways won by a big margin of 133 runs.
Scorecard
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Delhi Vs Bengal at Kolkata
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Bengal who had won just
one match this season against Karnataka were
hosting Delhi this week. After winning the toss
and electing to bat, Bengal's first innings was
shaken up by the two Delhi new ball bowlers Amit
Bhandari and Kunal Lal. Bengal were bowled out
for a moderate 240 with Rohan Gavaskar top
scoring with 68 and middle order batsman SG Das
on an unbeaten 50. Bhandari picked up a five
wicket haul and Kunal picked up 3. Eden Gardens
looked to be perfectly aiding the seamers as
Delhi in their reply were bowled out for just
251. Again the damage was caused by the seamers
with Shib Shankar Paul and Ranvir Bose taking 5
wickets each. The batting woes continued in the
2nd innings also for Bengal as they were shot
out for 232 giving Delhi a target of 222. Amit
Bhandari took another 5 wickets to finish his
match figures at 10/117. Chasing 222, Delhi got
off to a bad start losing Shikar Dhawan but the
innings was well repaired by the patience of
Akash Chopra and the strokeful Gautam Gambhir.
Gambhir played shots along the Eden Gardens to
race away to a quick 126 coming of just 111
balls. Bengal did manage to get Gambhir out but
it was too late and Delhi eventually were the
winners at the Eden Gardens.
Scorecard
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Baroda Vs Tamil Nadu
at Baroda
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Tamil Nadu won the toss
and elected to bat first at the Moti Bagh
Stadium. One thought what a bad decision it was
as Tamil Nadu innings was in a shamble at 93/8.
TN would well have been bowled out under 100 but
for the 40 runs partnership between Hemanth
Kumar (52*) and Ganapathy (24). Tamil Nadu were
infact bowled out for 152 with fast medium
bowler Rakesh Patel taking up 7 wickets, those 7
wickets had a hattrick too. The hattrick victims
of Patel were Indian test wicket keeper Dinesh
Karthik, Srinivas and Ramkumar. Baroda did no
better than Tamil Nadu except in getting bundled
out under three figures. 64 all out and the
chief wrecker was a 20 year old medium pacer
known as Rajamani Jesuraj. Jesuraj took 6/12.
Tamil Nadu could only do slightly better than
their 1st innings total and posted just 183
leaving Baroda with a target of 272. The target
was pretty stiff but Baroda have done well
chasing in the recent past when they chased a
similar target at the Gymkhana Grounds,
Hyderabad. Although this time they got off to a
bad start and were 91/5, Connor Williams hung in
there to score 53 but eventually was the 5th
wicket to go down. Baroda needed a spiritual
partnership to have any chances of winning this
game and they had one in the form of Kiran Powar
and Yousuf Pathan. Both the batsmen scored
unbeaten 90 and 81 respectively to see Baroda
win this match by 4 wickets.
Scorecard
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Gujarat Vs Madhya
Pradesh at Ahmedabad
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Gujarat won the toss and
elected to bat first at the Sardar Patel Stadium
in Ahmedabad. The homeside piled up 353 thanks
to 142 from middle order batsman Kirat Damani
and 52 from former Mumbai player Bhavin Thaker.
Both the new bowlers for M.P did the damage with
Sunil Dholpure taking 5 and Sanjay Pandey 3. It
was again wickets for the new ball bowlers of
Gujarat as M.P were bowled out for 280 giving
away the first innings lead to Gujarat. Hitesh
Majmudar took 4 and his partner Makda took 5
wickets. Gujarat scored 124/1 in their second
essay and the match ended in an inevitable draw.
Scorecard
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Hyderabad Vs Punjab at
Hyderabad
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This was a match I was
waiting for personally. Just the evening prior
to the game, I got a mail from from
Mr.Blessington Thomas, Scorer from the Hyderabad
Cricket Association giving the line ups for the
game. I was wondering who was named as the
skipper of Hyderabad with Venkatapathy Raju just
retiring from the game. And the mail loaded and
surprise surprise, top of all the names in the
Hyderabad line up was V.V.S. Laxman and he was
also the captain. Isn’t he amazing? The same
Laxman was on the field at Chittagong for India
on the 20th and on the 22nd he is on the field
for Hyderabad. Does he have a point to prove to
his critics, the selectors or is this just his
commitment towards Hyderabad? We have no clues
whatsoever! I was up and ready to go to the
Gymkhana and was really surprised to see a big
crowd who were just waiting and hoping outside
the locked gates, just to have a glimpse of
their hero V.V.S.Laxman. I just overheard the
Hyderabad’s coach Rajesh Yadav quoting in his
usual style “Laxman aaya…bas hey (with his body
language clearly suggesting that he was a very
very relieved person).
Read complete Report
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Maharashtra Vs Uttar
Pradesh at Karad
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Maharashtra's skipper
Hrishikesh Kanitkar won the toss and decided to
bat first at the Chatrapati Shivaji Stadium in
Karad. The innings was beautifully controlled by
Dheeraj Jadhav who has been the backbone of
Maharashtra's batting line up. Dheeraj scored
yet another ton to put things in the right
direction for the homeside. However the other
batsmen failed to covert the good starts to
their innings into big scores and the homeside
looked to lose their way. Ranjit Khirid with his
80 made sure that Maharashtra reached 350+ and
his innings and Jadhav's 139 were instrumental
in their total of 394. Wickets were shared by
the pacers Ashish Winston Zaidi, left armers
R.P.Singh and Shalabh Srivastava. Left arm
spinner Praveen Gupta also accounted for 2
wickets. Ranjit Khirid continued to have a dream
match as his medium pace rocked the U.P innings
with 6 wickets. Young Suresh Raina chipped in
with 67 and the ever dependable Rizwan Shamshad
scored 60, but these innings could help UP only
to 282, 112 runs short of the Maharashtra's
total. Uttar Pradesh bowlers seemed to have
different ideas in the 2nd innings as they went
on a rampage against the batsmen and they
bundled out Maharashtra for just 119. Veteran
pacer Zaidi took 3 and R.P.Singh took 5 wickets.
U.P needed just 232 runs to win the match and
they just romped home with a 5 wicket win.
Skipper Jyoti Yadav led from the front scoring a
50 and Rizwan Shamshad with his 78 and Shukla
with his solid 40 saw UP complete a 5 wicket
victory.
Scorecard
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