Bose's odd week, and a boost for Plate League
Sidharth Monga looks back at the highlights of the sixth round of the Ranji Trophy
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The Ranji Trophy Plate League will have semi-finals and a final for the last time this season. Under the new system, ratified by the BCCI Working Committee last week, the leaders of the two groups in the Plate League will qualify for the Super League quarterfinals along with the three top teams from each Super League group.
When given out lbw off Praveen Kumar at Kolkata, Manoj Tiwary stood aghast - bat slightly pointing towards umpire, words on his lips, and anger in his eyes - and walked off reluctantly. PTI reported he had words with both umpires on his way back and more when the umpires were headed in for lunch.
Aakash Chopra was sawn off for the second time in two matches, adding to his woes a week after Delhi team-mate Virender Sehwag made it to the squad ahead of him for the Test series in Australia. While Chopra sought to be philosophical and saw it as just another occupational hazard, Pravin Amre, Mumbai's coach, lashed out at the umpires. After Mumbai failed to bowl Himachal Pradesh out in their second innings, Amre was quoted as saying in the Times of India: "[Abhishek] Nayar and Ramesh Powar had both got [Ashok] Thakur early on - lbw and caught behind respectively -- but they were denied. Earlier, Rohit Sharma, Amol Muzumdar and Ajit Agarkar were incorrectly given out. This is the sixth match and I have not spoken against the standard of umpiring so far. But it has hurt us badly in every game. We are having to take 15 wickets in every innings."
Over the last week or two, Ranadeb Bose has been compared to Sourav Ganguly in terms of pace by a national selector, omitted from the invitees' list for the BCCI awards night where he was an winner, and his second name was changed on the team list in the match against Uttar Pradesh.
VRV Singh became the third bowler to take a hat-trick in two rounds of Ranji Trophy matches. And like the previous two - by Sony Cheruvathur and Parvinder Awana - this one too set up a win and also helped Punjab avoid relegation. VRV dismissed Niranjan Behera off the last ball of his fifth over and Rashmi Parida and Rashmi Das with the first two of his sixth, as Orissa collapsed from 24 for 0 to 76 all out in the second innings.
"To be honest, it wouldn't have been as bad had Gautam [Gambhir] made it ahead of me.": Aakash Chopra told Mid-Day about his exclusion from the squad for the Tests in Australia. "But Viru [Sehwag] - although he is a very good friend of mine - being picked ahead of both of us is a bit shocking. He was not even named in the provisional squad. In that sense, I have every right to be disappointed."
Sidharth Monga is a staff writer at Cricinfo