Indian domestic cricket/ players

[PKBasu]

Manoj Tiwary made 151 off 121 balls to lead East Zone to a 52-run victory over North Zone in the Deodhar Trophy semifinal. Although Bengal thoroughly dominated the East Zonal competition, there were only 4 Bengal players in the East Zone squad (although a fifth played today -- VP Singh, who wasn't in the squad! Sudeep Chatterjee surely should have been in the squad too, but isn't). Apart from Manoj, only one East batsman crossed 20 (Sreevats Goswami, 43). But the bowlers did well enough to bowl out North for 221 (Gurkeerat 83, Mandeep 40, Rishi Dhawan 38 following his 2/53 with the ball, Yuvi 1 and 1/20) in response to East's 273/8. For East, Dinda (2/58), Lahiri (3/41), Orissa's Samantray (2/51), VP Singh (1/30) and Manoj (a wicket off the only ball he bowled) shared the bowling honours.

[PKBasu]

South Zone play West Zone in the other semifinal tomorrow.
In the QF, South thrashed Central by 116 runs, mainly behind a century (113) from Aparajith, which made up for the failures of Uthappa, Pandey and Samson. KK Nair was the other big scorer (74), and Vinay Kumar (3/8) was deadly with the ball. Again selections were a bit bizarre, as they are with zonal teams.

[PKBasu]

West Zone reached the Deodhar trophy final, beating South by 2 wickets with 17 balls to spare, after Akshar Patel's blitz (64* off 38 balls). Bizarrely skipper Vinay Kumar didn't go to Mithun (of the famous yorkers) or Binny (who respectively had 3 and 2 overs left to bowl), and instead got his part-time spinners and medium pacer to bowl the 41st to 47th over. Shardul Thakur hammered 20 runs off the 47th over (from Ashish Reddy) to basically end the game.

Apart from Akshar's, the other key innings for West was 80 off 56 balls by Suryakumar Yadav. For South, there were half centuries by Uthappa, Agarwal, Pandey and Aparajith (the top 4 batsmen in the order) in their total of 314/7 -- but it wasn't enough!

[suresh]

Bizarre is a correct description. After Suryakumar Yadav got out, South Zone should have aimed to bowl out West Zone instead of trying to win in the 50th over. That being said, that was an awesome show of power hitting from Yadav, Akshar and Thakur to lead WZ to a victory.

[PKBasu]

Parthiv Patel is not in the West Zone Deodhar Trophy side, presumably dropped because of poor form in the Hazare trophy. Jackson keeping wickets, although Smit Patel is also a possible choice. Parthiv played in the Duleep trophy with distinction, but this is a different format.

[PKBasu]

East Zone won the Deodhar Trophy, beating West comfortably by 24 runs mainly because of an excellent 4/33 by Ashok Dinda that helped East defend a slightly below-par score of 269/7. Kedar Jadhav made 97 for West zone, but all rounder Samantray (2/55) did well to get his wicket at a crucial time. Manoj Tiwary (75) continued his rich vein of form, top-scoring as usual for East zone.

[PKBasu]

Ranji first round matches underway, and the biggest potential upset today could be Jammu & Kashmir beating Mumbai!! J&K need 178 runs to win outright with 9 wickets in hand. And the bowling hero for J&K wasn't Parvez Rasool (2/35 and 0/46) but opening bowler Ram Dayal (3/51 and 5/75). And no, he wasn't bowling in the rarefied air of Jammu or Srinagar, but at the Wankhede Stadium! Can Mumbai's bowlers pull a rabbit out of their hats today?

[PKBasu]

J&K managed to beat Mumbai by 4 wickets.
Punjab had an outright win over Haryana, with Yuvraj (59 and 135) top-scoring in both innings.
Karnataka beat TN by 285 runs.
Delhi beat Saurashtra by 9 wickets after a first innings century from skipper Gambhir (Sehwag was run out for 9).

[sameerph]

Great feat by J & K to beat Mumbai in Mumbai. Good that cricket is still alive their despite all the problems. I remember watching an ODI being played Srinagar many years back. I hope we get to see international cricket being played at J & K sometime in near future.

[PKBasu]

Yuvraj Singh did poorly during the List A season (Hazare and Deodhar trophies) and so was deservedly left out of the 30 probables for the World Cup.

Now, he has found a rich vein of form in first-class cricket. His run of scores in the Ranji matches so far: 59, 130, 136, 13, 182 (averaging 104). And he has also chipped in with the ball: 1/18, 0/4, 1/20, 3/47. Bhajji, on the other hand, seems to be fading (especially as a bowler; he is now a mediocre all-rounder and good captain for Punjab).

Viru has also found some form, making 64 and 105 in his last two Ranji games.

[prasen9]

In this season, the batting leaders are:

Qualification 330 runs (by avg.): S. Badrinath, K.L. Rahul, S.P. Jackson, G. Gambhir, Y. Singh, Gurkeerat Singh, and G. Vihari

Good to see Badri and Gambhir in form. Gurkeerat has an okay life-time record and is 24. Vihari is just 21 and has performed consistently. We should keep an eye on him. Who is Sheldon Jackson? He is possibly around 27 and is also a wicketkeeper. Is he a good keeper?

We have certainties in Kohli and Rahane in the MO. The problem is that we do not have a couple more supporting batsmen. Until they develop, would it have been a good idea to give Badri a run. He certainly has the experience. For all Dhoni's talk about giving people a fair run, it is just talk. It is only applicable for his favorites and not for the likes of Badri, etc.

Gambhir needs to light the Ranjis on fire and play big innings especially later on in the tournament to be in consideration again. Vijay seems to have cemented his place. But, Dhawan has been shown to be lacking.

[PKBasu]

Viru is beginning to look like the run machine of old -- in fact, better than he ever was in domestic first-class cricket, and more the way he was in his test-playing pomp. He made 147* on a green Lahli pitch on which Delhi were 41/4 at one stage -- until Viru and Bhatia (72) rescued them. So Viru's last three innings have been 64, 105, 147*. Perhaps more to come tomorrow?

[prasen9]

After a few more matches, here is the leaderboard.

Batting [qual: 400 runs, by avg.]: Dogra, SP Jackson, G. Gambhir, Yuvraj, Vihari, Gurkeerat, Naman Ojha.

Bowling[qual: 18 wickets, by avg.]: Aravind, RB Kalaria, K Das, MM Sharma, K Upadhyay.

[PKBasu]

Tamil Nadu inflicted a huge innings defeat on UP, with Abhinav Mukund making a big century (140), his second of the season (and 21st of his career), bidding for a recall to the test side (and consideration for ODIs too: he averages 51 in List A at a strike rate of 80+).

The more interesting fact was that Malola Rangarajan, an off-spinner (and, I think, a classical one like Erapalli AS Prasanna) was the chief wrecker (5/42 in the second innings after 2/39 off nearly 21 overs in the first). Someone to pay attention to, I think! (He is 25, and averages less than 25 runs/wicket in first class cricket). Of course, Chepauk is an off-spinner's paradise, so we need to discount that factor.

[prasen9]

You forgot our friend WP Saha, who scored 166. Maybe he is relishing the Indian pitches after the Aussie stint. Hopefully, a few more good scores will buy him another series or two and his first full series as the #1 India keeper. We should look at any TN player's away averages. I think there was an article in CI which said that their spinners' averages were around 48 while playing outside Cheepauk