Consistent Rajasthan dominate stats
Rajasthan, who sealed their second consecutive Ranji Trophy title, led the way with both bat and ball this season
Madhusudhan Ramakrishnan
23-Jan-2012
A look at a few key numbers from the Ranji Trophy final, and the entire Ranji season.
All stats unless mentioned, are from the 2011-12 Ranji season
- 3: The number of times a team has posted 600-plus against Tamil Nadu in the Ranji Trophy final. Karnataka and Mumbai are the two other teams to achieve the feat in 1995-96 and 2003-04 respectively. Rajasthan's 621 is also their highest total in the 2011-12 season and is the second instance of a team posting over 500 against Tamil Nadu this season.
- 21: The number of double-centuries scored in Ranji Trophy finals. Vineet Saxena became the second Rajasthan player after Hanumant Singh (1966-67) to score a double-century in a final. Of the 21 double-centuries, seven have been scored by Mumbai batsmen. Gul Mohammad has the highest score in a Ranji final (319) while Vijay Hazare is the only batsman to score two double-centuries in finals. Denis Compton is the only non-Indian batsman to score a double-century in a Ranji final, when he played for Holkar in 1945-46.
- 236: The opening partnership between Aakash Chopra and Vineet Saxena in the final. It is the third 200-plus opening stand in a Ranji final after the 279-run stand between Sunil Gavaskar and Ashok Mankad in 1969-70 and the 243-run partnership between Vinayak Mane and Wasim Jaffer in 2003-04. The Rajasthan innings witnessed three century stands for the first three wickets making it the first ever instance of three century stands for first three wickets in Ranji finals.
- 28: The number of 500-plus totals scored this season. The highest score (698) was made by Tamil Nadu against Gujarat in Ahmedabad. Karnataka and Rajasthan made over 500 on four occasions each, the most by any team. However, only on four of those occasions did teams go on to win the match outright (the others were decided on first-innings lead).
- 19: The number of double-century scores in the 2011-12 season. Saxena's 257 in the final was the second double-century for Rajasthan in the season and only the second one scored for the team in a Ranji final. While Abhinav Mukund is the only player to score two double-centuries in the 2011-12 season, Manprit Juneja of Gujarat is the only one to score a double-century on debut (against Tamil Nadu).
- 16: The most century stands for a team this season. Not surprisingly, Rajasthan, the champions, are on top of this list. Karnataka and Mumbai are joint second, with 14 century partnerships. The most century stands in a match (6) occurred in the Rajasthan-Uttar Pradesh game in Jaipur and in the game between Gujarat and Tamil Nadu in Ahmedabad.
- 85: The most overs bowled by a bowler in an innings this season, by Aushik Srinivas of Tamil Nadu against Rajasthan in the final. Overall, in the season, there were eight instances of bowlers bowling more than 50 overs in an innings. Pankaj Singh (Rajasthan) and Aushik bowled the most overs in the season (368.0 and 357.4 respectively).
- 5: The most centuries scored in the season, by Dheeraj Jadhav of Assam. Jadhav, in a stunning performance, scored five centuries in five matches in the season and aggregated 704 runs at an average of 176.00. Robin Bist (Rajasthan) and Akshath Reddy (Hyderabad) scored four centuries each. Karnataka, Mumbai and Rajasthan are on top with the most centuries scored (12 each) followed by Hyderabad and Tamil Nadu (10). Rajasthan also conceded the most centuries (12) followed by Uttar Pradesh (10).
- 156: The number of centuries scored this season, in 88 matches. In the same number of matches in the 2010-11 season, 130 centuries were scored. In the 2009-10 season, five fewer matches were played (83) and 127 centuries were scored.
- 8.53: The difference in average between pace bowlers (30.83) and spinners (39.36) this season. The difference was 6.55 in the 2010-11 season when spinners averaged 36.76 and pace bowlers 30.21 and even lower (4.57) in the 2009-10 season when pace bowlers averaged 30.05 and spinners 34.62.
- 33.79: The runs per wicket in the 2011-12 season. This is higher than the corresponding number in the 2010-11 (32.76) and 2009-10 (31.89) seasons.
With contributions from Sudhir Vaidya