It is Dhoni Magic all the way – his 100th ODI victory came on a grand occasion – a comprehensive
thumping of Bangladesh in the QF at Melbourne Cricket Ground, as now India awaits
winner of Pak-Aussie clash tomorrow. Dhoni’s way is
unpredictable – the first 25 overs saw 99 runs while the next 25 saw India
score 203 runs. Rohit
Sharma, who had been in patchy form on the tour, lifted India to a formidable
total with a well made century. Dhoni is
the 3rd most successful Captain behind Ricky
Ponting (167) and Allan Border (107).
Photo credit :
bcci.tv
Rohit and his partnership of 122 with Suresh Raina 65 off 57) set a target of
303. This time it was Umesh Yadav (four for 3) who led the attack bowling them
out for 193. With Indian team hitting a crescendo, reaching
the Semi finals in style – bowling their opponents 7th consecutive time –
perhaps none will be following the Irani Cup match back home. This tournament was conceived during the
1959-60 season to mark the completion of 25 years of the Ranji Trophy
championship and was named after the late Z.R. Irani, who was associated with
the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) from its inception in 1928. The
Irani Trophy is always played between the Ranji Trophy winners and the Rest of
India Team. Way back in 1975, Dilip
Vengsarkar in his teens slammed a majestic century for Mumbai against Prasanna
and others, which earned him National recognition paving way for his debut
against NZ at Auckland in 1975 as an opener.
At Bangalore, on day 3 half-centuries
from three Karnataka batsmen helped extend their lead beyond 300. With
the pitch beginning to offer considerable turn and bounce, the chase, whenever
it begins, will present Rest of India quite a challenge. Karnataka 2nd innings 341/6 (R. Samarth 81,
Karun Nair 80 MK Pandey 73*) Day 1 saw Varun Aaron bowl with jest and
dismissing Karnataka for 244 (M Agarwal
68, V Aaron 6/63); ROI got a slender lead only making 264 (K Jadhav 78, A
Mithun 3/46, S Gopal 3/51, Vinay Kumar 3/76)
One cannot help the feeling that
Tamil Nadu again got a raw deal from the National Selectors. Rest of India team that should ideally top
performers of Ranji season - TN is the
runner up – only Baba Aparajit and Vijay Shankar were in the squad and both of
them were not in the playing XI – while some [that includes Captain Manoj
Tiwary] who did not make enough runs
this season are in the playing XI. What
do you call this ?
Indian Express
writes that Manoj Tiwary’s last first-class innings this season came at
Indore’s Holkar Stadium against a honest yet unremarkable Madhya Pradesh
bowling attack. He made 14 in the second innings before falling to the
medium-pace of Puneet Datey. The veteran Bengal right-hander had spent 66 minutes
the first time around for a painstaking 8. At the same time, Hanuma Vihari had
just completed his third ton for the season, a mammoth 263 for Hyderabad
against Himachal Pradesh and finished
with 780 runs at 86.66, finished at No.8 of the run-getters, five spots ahead
of Yadav, who made 690 runs at 43.12.
While Unmukt Chand (562), Jiwanjot
Singh (356), K Jadhav (493), Manoj Tiwary (349) made it – Abhinav Mukund (858),
Sheldon Jackson (819), Shreyas Iyer (809), Srikar Bharat (758), Baba Indrajit
(713) – all were cold shouldered. The two most consistent openers through the
Ranji season, who were not from Karnataka, were Tamil Nadu skipper Abhinav
Mukund and Andhra’s Srikar Bharat; but the selectors have gone with Jiwanjot
Singh, who made a grand debut two years ago but couldn’t go past 76 in the last
four months, only averaging 23.73 in eight matches for Punjab.
In 2012 ROI piled mammoth total against
Rajasthan. Murali Vijay batted to glory, reaching the highest individual score (266) in the tournament's history, beating a
22-year-old record held by Praveen Amre, to pretty much ensure the Ranji
champions would be denied the Irani Cup for a seventh year in a row. Way back in Nov. 1990, against Bengal, ROI
had declared at 737/7 with Ravi Shastri the captain making 217 and Pravin Amre
made 246.
The one match we would ever remember
is that of Oct 1988 which brought VB Chandrasekhar into National
reckoning. ROI captained by Arunlal
made 433 with good contributions from IB Roy 60; Navjot Sidhu 86, Srikant
Kalyani 93; Jeshwant 62. S Vasudevan
took 5 for 116. Krish Srikkanth leading
TN made 57 and TN were all out for 226.
Gopal Sharma took 6/69. ROI made
the blunder of batting again and this time were shot out for 132 in less than
50 overs with Vasudevan taking 4 and Krish Srikkanth taking 3 for 14. Chasing a target of 340, Srikkanth and VB
Chandrasekhar plundered at will and TN made the required runs in 79 overs
brining out a remarkable victory which remains etched in memory. Hirwani and Gopal Sharma were hit to all
parts of Chepauk.
With regards – S. Sampathkumar
19th Mar 2015.
PS : Irani Cup ROI team stats courtesy : Indian
Express
VB Chandrasekhar photo – courtesy his Facebook.
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