The Great Ranji Hoopla
The curtain momentarily fell on Monday evening on the proceedings of the Ranji Trophy, which will remain dormant until December 24
Sankhya Krishnan
01-Dec-1999
The curtain momentarily fell on Monday evening on the proceedings
of the Ranji Trophy, which will remain dormant until December
24. But the lead characters cannot wander off the stage as they
are contracted to appear in another production beginning on
Wednesday - the Duleep Trophy. The Ranji hiatus provides an
opportune moment to relive some of the bright and dark sides to
the season so far.
The overwhelming preponderance of contests in the preliminary
phase of this tournament can be conveniently sorted into two
categories. Those where the result is predestined (eg. Bengal v
Tripura) and those where the result is meaningless (eg. Punjab v
Haryana) as it would normally make no difference to their chances
of qualifying. Indeed to call these matches contests, requires a
peculiar sense of humour, for contests they assuredly are not.
The same teams qualify for the next stage with unfailing monotony
(all right, so Mumbai didn't qualify last year but it was only
for the third time in 64 seasons), so clearly the competitive
instinct is dead and the only thing left to play for is
individual glory. This phase of the Ranji Trophy represents
nothing more than a futile gesture to convention as the powers
that be have got it into their collective skulls that this is the
only way in which the tournament can be organised.
The North Zone league is the only one to have completed all its
engagements. Punjab, Delhi and Haryana have again qualified for
the Super League for the millionth time in a row, the only
concession to change being that Punjab, and not Delhi, is the
group leader this time.
Wicketkeeper batsman Pankaj Dharmani has been at the heart of
Punjab's success with successive scores of 70, 305 not out, 202
not out and 101 in his first four innings for a total of 678 at
an average of 339. This included a run of 608 runs without being
dismissed - close to KC Ibrahim's first class record of 709 in
the 1947-48 domestic season. The bubble finally burst in his last
match against Haryana when he sullied his average by failing to
score. Dharmani, who played without distinction for India in a
few ODI's as a batsman must be eyeing the keeper's slot in the
national side with some degree of expectation for the current
occupant MSK Prasad is revelling in distinguished mediocrity.
Reetinder Sodhi has been knocking to deaf ears on the doors of
national selection for some time. He put up a good all round show
with a hundred, a 79 and two five wicket hauls in an innings. But
the lynchpin of Punjab's bowling was Sharandeep Singh who had one
10 wicket and one nine wicket haul. Navjot Sidhu was not required
after scoring 1 & 2 in Punjab's opening match against Himachal.
His fortunes contrasted sharply with that of his contemporary and
fellow India discard, Azharuddin.
The Punjab-Delhi match was always going to be a needle match not
least because Delhi has a fair number of Punjabis itself. Punjab
bested Delhi in the scramble for the first innings lead but only
just, as Delhi replied to Punjab's 530-7 declared with 527.
Virender Sehwag, Ashu Dani and Mithun Minhas were the most
consistent batsmen for Delhi with two hundreds each. Delhi also
has as good a new ball pair as any in the country in Ashish Nehra
and Amit Bhandari. They took a five wicket haul each against
Services and Nehra, who was good enough to play for India in
February but does not even make the A side now, took 11 wickets
in Delhi's trouncing of J&K. Haryana was always going to play
third fiddle and came through on the strength of their batting.
The 31-year-old Himachal skipper, Rajiv Nayyar, was plucked from
obscurity but for all the wrong reasons. While his 271 in 1015
minutes was a feat of remarkable attrition, in the context of the
game it was also remarkably self-serving. Himachal's first
innings ended late on the final evening, allowing J & K 5 overs
in their second knock. At least Hanif Mohammed, whom Nayyar
eclipsed as the longest first class innings, played a match
saving knock at Bridgetown in 1957-58. Nayyar's was neither match
winning nor match saving, only match killing.
The Central Zone is the only league that bucks the trend by being
played in a competitive spirit, what with having not three but
four evenly matched teams. Although Madhya Pradesh topped the
group last season, they are virtually out of the running this
year for a place in the Super League. They finished their
engagements with 14 points from 4 matches, behind Rajasthan and
Railways with 18 and 16 respectively, from three matches each.
Fourth placed UP has 11 points with a match in hand against
minnows Vidarbha and they should clinch the remaining berth with
minimum fuss.
MP were deprived of an outright victory against Railways after an
audaciously defensive batting display by the latter on the last
day. Starting the day at 3-0 after following on, Railways made 83
more in a full day's play (104 overs) for the loss of five
wickets. They obviously distrusted the hoary precept that attack
is the best form of defence. The four man MP spin attack,
including Chauhan and Hirwani, was stymied although Majithia had
the dubious satisfaction of crafting arguably the most miserly
analysis in history: 20-20-0-1!
Jai Prakash Yadav's 265 went in vain for MP in this match. Yadav
showed that he's no mug with the ball either, taking six wickets
in an innings in the next match against Rajasthan. But the big
disappointment was Amay Khurasia. His scores of 25, 12, 31, 22,
22, 4 and 16 belied the fact that he was India material not more
than four months ago. Sanjeev Sharma, the former India medium
pacer whose enduring claim to fame is having Graham Gooch dropped
off him on 36 (culprit:More) en route to his 333, having switched
states from Delhi to Rajasthan, has also apparently switched his
identity from bowler to batsman. He hit a century against
Vidarbha and followed it up with 78 not out and 100 not out vs
UP. Murali Kartik managed to get in a 12 wicket haul for Railways
in the only match he played, against Vidarbha, before moving on
to bigger stages to parade his talents.
The South Zone league threw up the only 'surprise' of the
tournament so far with Tamil Nadu defeating holders Karnataka in
Bangalore by 116 runs with 5.4 overs to spare. But it was no
surprise really with Karnataka missing seven first eleven players
on duty with India & India A. Of course TN missed Ramesh and
Kumaran as well. The worrying aspect of the defeat for Karmataka
is that it opens up the third qualifying spot for an assault by
upstarts Andhra. With all six teams having played three matches
each, Hyderabad lead the table with 21 points followed by TN with
18. Karnataka with 16 and Andhra with 14 follow and while they
play each other in one game, Andhra also has a match in hand
against Kerala while Karnataka is yet to take on formidable
Hyderabad.
Mohd. Azharuddin has been pointedly ignoring the crude hints
being dropped by the selectors to retire. And he has done his
cause no harm with a score of 200 against Goa, which is not
exactly the best attack in the country. Anything less may have
brought his competence into question. VVS Laxman also stroked his
way to two 100's in two innings against Goa and Kerala, against
attacks which are perhaps a trifle less well endowed than
Queensland. The ageless wonder Kanwaljeet Singh has been a no
less vital cog in the wheel with match hauls of 10 & 11 v Goa and
Kerala en route to becoming the highest wicket taker for
Hyderabad. Having disposed off the rabbits, Hyderabad now has its
work cut out to preserve its lead, with clashes looming ahead
against its two arch rivals.
For Tamil Nadu, S Sharath, who captained the side when Robin
Singh was away on national duty, made 91 and 106 not out against
Kerala and 83 in the win over Karnataka. Rowland Barrington of
Karnataka joined the select list of batsmen making a century on
first class debut in the match against Kerala.
It's early days yet in the West Zone league. Mumbai leads with 11
points from two games followed by Baroda on 10 from two. Mumbai
began with an innings victory over Maharashtra with rookie
spinner Rajesh Pawar taking 11 wickets. However they contrived to
lose the first innings lead to Baroda's last wicket pair in their
second game. The Mumbai top order of Jaffer, Paranjpe, Majumdar
and Kambli have yet to make the transition from fallible human
beings to relentless run machines. Nilesh Kulkarni has also
looked sharp with two five wicket hauls in an innings, although
his lack of penetration in the Irani Trophy game has condemned
him to the sidelines.
Mumbai exile Rohan Gavaskar has been having a ball a couple of
thousand kilometres to the east. He and Srikant Kalyani took a
liking to the Tripura attack, flaying it for double centuries
apiece as Bengal won by an innings. They are now top of the East
Zone league with 13 points from two matches. Bihar too rode on a
victory over Tripura to gather 11 points from two. Orissa, the
third participant in this three horse race, has garnered five
points from the only match it has played, against Bihar where it
got a first innings lead of four runs. For its part Assam has
also done considerably well. It has only three points from one
match but almost grabbed the first innings lead against Bengal
who were bailed out by their last wicket pair.
Forty of the sixty matches in the preliminary stage have been
concluded. But it is debatable if this whole elaborate exercise
has made anybody the wiser. Indeed the only changes in the
qualifiers to the Super League from last year are likely to be UP
for MP, Mumbai for Maharashtra and perhaps Andhra for a depleted
Karnataka. Except for two or three teams, the same list could
have been drawn up before the season began. In effect, this whole
rigmarole only serves to decide three qualifiers. The Board of
Control for Cricket in India should ponder in its infinite wisdom
whether this kind of format is in the interests of Indian
cricket.