Ranji action hots up once more

The Ranji season resumes on Friday after a three and a half week hiatus to accommodate the Duleep Trophy. While Punjab, Delhi and Haryana have already advanced to the Super League from the North Zone, the qualifying spots from the other zones are still up for grabs. Holders Karnataka are in a delicate position languishing as they are in third place in the South Zone league with 16 points, just two points ahead of fourth placed Andhra. They need an outright win in their head to head clash with Andhra beginning December 28 to ensure their berth in the Super League. Hyderabad and Tamil Nadu are the front runners to progress into the next stage.

In the Central Zone, Rajasthan and Railways are through with a game in hand but last season's group topper Madhya Pradesh, having completed their fixtures with 14 points, face an early exit as Uttar Pradesh with 11 points look set to overtake them with a game in hand against Vidarbha. The East and West Zone leagues are in their early stages but do not portend any surprises. Mumbai should be putting last year's aberration, when they were packed off in the preliminaries, firmly behind them. Baroda and Saurashtra are currently behind Mumbai in the points tally. Looking eastwards, Bengal, Orissa and Bihar seem hard to match although they should watch out for dark horses Assam who gave Bengal a fright in the battle for the first innings lead.

Pankaj Dharmani has been this year's run glutton having crossed 1000 runs for the season of which 678 have come in the Ranji Trophy at an average of 226 including a triple century against J&K. But he is still not leading the Ranji averages what with Rohan Gavaskar averaging 275 albeit from just 2 matches. The dour Rajiv Nayyar is second in the run stakes with 593 but his season is already over with Himachal Pradesh having been eliminated. Three Singhs - Shakti, Sharandeep and Kanwaljeet - are ahead in the wickets department with 27, 26 and 24 respectively, Kanwaljeet's bag having come from just three matches. And finally, among the unsung and forgotten members of the keeping species (of wickets that is), Somashekar Shiraguppi of Karnataka has the most dismissals to his credit with 15 from three matches.

There are 20 more matches to go in the four Zonal leagues that are still in progress with the last match from the East Zone ending on January 15. After a break for the Deodhar Trophy, the Ranji Super League commences on February 5 and the latter stage of the championship continues until the season ending Ranji final from April 19-23.