Lot happened at Rohtak - not as much at Mumbai - Ranji Semis Update

With the drubbing downunder, not much of Cricket is being followed and the Semi Finals of the domestic event – the Ranji Trophy may not attract great crowds. Now  at Rohatak, Haryana play Rajasthan, while Tamilnadu are playing against host Mumbai in 4 day matches.   The best of bowlers in this Season of Ranji Trophy has been TP Sudhindra for Madhya Pradesh – awesome 40 wickets in 7 Matches / 14 innings and more impressive Ashok Dinda with 37 wickets from 6 matches / 10 innings.  The top 5 batsmen have been : R Bist of Rajasthan  841 from 12 innings; Abhinav Mukund 825 in 11; Stuart Binny of Karnataka 742 in 11 innings; Suryakumar A Yadav, Mumbai 669 in 9 innings and Naman Ojha 668 in 11 innings. 

Those who love the game are extremely fascinated of  every minute, every delivery, every run scored – all have a history.  Here is an interesting piece of statistics which amazed me too…..

Lot of unnecessary hype has been created about that elusive 100^th ton of Sachin – I have maintained that combining two different forms of cricket and then attaching some significance is not very relevant.  However, here is something on what has occurred in International arena between Sachin’s 99^th Test century and his elusive 100^th .

Sachin’s 99^th ton came on Mar 12, 2011 against South Africa at Nagpur during WC 2011 and from that to the recent Sydney Test, there had been 110 individual centuries in international cricket (72 in Tests, 37 in ODIs and one in Twenty20 internationals).  Michael Clarke, Rahul Dravid, Kumar Sangakkara and Zimbabwe's Brendan Taylor have so far scored five international centuries - and Ian Bell, Alastair Cook, Mike Hussey and Mohammad Hafeez four -  as the little Master who has made them most is searching for that special one !  [stats courtesy : Ask Steve – http://www.cricinfo.com/]

Now something on Ranji Semis.  At Rohtak, in the Heart of Haryana,  wickets tumbled at Bansilal Stadium – those following Indian politics would know that the three Lals -  Bhajan, Bansi and Devi have held the Chief Minister's post among themselves between 1968 and 99.   Frequently, we hear people talking of sporting wickets and perhaps when the wicket assisted bowlers, no batsman stood to offer some fight.    Harshal Patel, the former India Under-19 bowler and current flavour of the season, again produced the best Ranji figures this year - 8 for 34 - as Rajasthan were bundled out for 89.   Then  it was the turn of  Rajasthan's  Rituraj Singh taking 5 for 36 reducing Haryana to 40/7  to 82/8 at stumps.  The ninth wicket of Rajasthan had fallen at  66.   Patel’s figures read  15.1-4-34-8;  in an earlier match he had taken 8/40 against Karnataka ensuring their outright win.  Creditable performance from an youngster and whether he will grow up to play for India remains to be seen !!  He reportedly had been contracted by Mumbai Indians – spotting talent at a nascent stage. 

Harshal Patel (photo courtesy : www.cricinfo.com)

At Mumbai, it was not as dramatic.  Abhinav Mukund fell early but  a 99 partnership between Murali Vijay and Badrinath and later a good innings from Ramaswamy Prasanna (81 n.0) took Tamilnadu to 250/6 in 90 overs.  Young Balwinder Singh Sandhu who does not appear to be any relative of his namesake who took that wicket of Greenidge in WC 1983 finals took 4.

With regards – S. Sampathkumar.