Indian Domestic : Season 2012-2013

First topic message reminder :

Irani Trophy is out of the way....Challenger is ongoing.......Duleep Trophy will start soon and then the entire Ranji season with a new 3 group and 2 tier structure.
In between there are A tours........India A in NZ and then Eng-A side comes to play India-A.

It warrants a separate thread

Suresh Raina rightly had a go at the obnoxious pitch for the Maharashtra UP match. But he has failed with the bat on the flattest of all flat pitches, out for a 2nd ball duck. Not like Raina, missing out on a flat road.

Delhi registred the first win of this otherwise atrocious 2nd round, and they have claimed the bonus point against Odisha by beating them by 10 wickets, and all that without their test stars.

Assam just need to take the last wicket to win against Jarkhand, Jarkhand are still away by 56 runs.

Ravindra Jadeja with the first double ton of the day. Sagar Jogiyani, who has been involved in a 350+ partnership with Jadeja is closing in on his double.

A combined effort from J Syed Mohammed and Arlen Konwar helped Assam to their 2nd win. They have now 13 points from 2 matches.

On the back of a 5 wicket performance from Manpreet Goni, Punjab defeated Bengal by an innings to go top of their group with 2 innings wins. Wriddhiman Saha made his 4th back to back 50 and Laxmi Ratan Shukla remained not out on 91, but wasn't enough to save Bengal. A good contest in the end.
Ravindra Jadeja is getting closer to a triple hundred and so is his partner Sagar Jogiyani. On Pune's road, Piyush Chawla is closing in on a hundred.
The Goa J&K match is getting lively, still 22 short of making Goa bat agin, J&K have already lost 6 wickets with captain Shahdab Jakati leading Goa's charge, taking 4 wickets.

Fortunately, this 2nd round of Ranji that seemed to go on and on and on for ever has come to an end. Punjab, Delhi and Assam won their matches. There was an interesting draw at Goa. all the other matches where cricketing disasters with every other batsman scoring hundreds and double hundreds and in Ravindra Jadeja's case even a triple hundred. To be fair to Jadeja though, he had taken 4 Gujarat wickets on a flat road, 4-127 in 41 overs has to be very creditable on that track. The Maharashtra UP match was thegreatest travesty of all, not even the first innings were completed after 4 days despite Maharashtra declaring there, admitedly after scoring more than 750 runs. UP replied strongly, scoring 669-7 with Piyush Chawla having some funn with the bat after being tonked around with the bat, the former India leggy responded with 156 violent runs of his own that included 8 hits over the boundary.

A court in India has overturned a life ban imposed on former India cricket captain Mohammad Azharuddin by the country's cricket authorities.

Silly comment:

"I was destined to play 99 Tests and I don't think I will add to this." Even Sachin will not be playing at 49 and that is without cheating.

And he is now an MP. You could'nt make it up.

http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/current/story/591031.html

raina still doesn't believe that he is not in the test side......I think he can't believe that Dhoni couldn't lobby him a place.

well raina's gotta know after Yuvarj is rahane and after that perhaps Tiwari.

Raina and Rohot not finding places in the squad signifies how Dhoni's powers have waned because if reecent bad shows of India

The 2nd round is over, and now its time for adding to the injury list. After the first round Ajit Agarkar, Praveen Kumar and Irfan Pathan were out injured. After the 2nd round it is the turn of Karnataka captain R Vinay Kumar and his opening partner Abhimanyu Mithun Both will be out for the next round and in Vinay's place it will be all-rounder Stuart Binny who will be leading Karnataka.
The back to back rounds of matches with only 3 days in between is proving to be too taxing particularly for the pace bowlers, and perhaps it is time for the BCCI technical committee to take a look.

Stuart Binny as captain

Meyrick Pringle, the Rajastan coach, has called for introducing batting and bowling bonus points, so that Ranji matches would become more meaningful. I do tend to agree with his view completely.
http://www.espncricinfo.com/india/content/current/story/591617.html

So far it has been the bowlers who were getting injured, but now we have a batsman to be added to the list of injured. The Rajasthan captain Hrishikesh Kanitkar, who scored a hundred against Mumbai last week will be missing the next match with a calf injury.

kanitkar, Bangar, agarkar, Jaffer, Kartik.....are all old bones...that you'd expect to play at best half of the games

Well the 3rd round has got of to a much better start than was the case in the last one was. A few wickets have fallen and that's a relief. MP are 64-4 against Rajasthan with India A medium pacer Rituraj Singh getting 3 wickets. Gujarat are 117-3 against Bengal, Parthiv Patel out for 61, Smit Patel batting 44. TN big guns Murali Vijay and S Badrinath collected ducks against Maharashtra and Abhinav Mukund scored only 6. UP are struggling big against a Karnataka attack missing both R Vinay Kumar and Abhimanyu Mithun. Suresh Raina failed again, scoring only 14.
Saurashtra are 66-2 against Hyderabad who are without VVS Laxman, out with a stiff back. Ravindra Jadeja is batting on 13.

Delhi are playing Baroda in this round. Rajit Bhatya and Ashish Nehra are back for Delhi. Baroda on the other hand are missing both the Pathan brothers, and are led by Ambati Rayudu.

Table toppers Punjab are playing against Railways, and Railways are 70-3. Manpreet Goni continues to have a good season, picking up 2 early wickets, Sanjay Bangar is batting on 20.

Unlucky 13 undid Ravindra Jadeja.
Dinesh Karthik also gone for TN who are struggling against Maharashtra.
Hariyana bowled out for 66, their 2nd lowest total in this Ranji season.

Today's highlights include a fighting hundred from Mohammed Kaif that ssaved UP's day against an innexperienced Karnataka attack. Ambati Rayudu has found form for Baroda, batting on 83 and Rituraj and Pankaj Singh bowled really well for Rajasthan. Parthiv and Smit Patels scored half-centuries for Gujarat and Akshay Darekar has been among the wickets for Maharashtra. Ashish Nehra yet again, has picked up an injury.

The other talking point of the day has been the hundred from veteran Amol Muzumdar, who during his 101 went pass Wasim Jaffer as the highest scorer in Ranji Trophy. Muzumdar was told by Mumbai that he was not part of their plans for the season, and being sounded out early, he moved in time to Andhra Pradesh.

A ton for Ambati Rayudu, 3 wickets out of the 5 fallen for Ravindra Jadeja, 3 of 6 from Balaji, a ton for young Baroda batsman Abhimanyu Chauhan, a double hundred for veteran Yashpal Singh, couple of wickets for Parwinder Awana, failures for Ashok Menaria and Mandeep Singh are some of the early talking points from day 2 of the 3rd round of the Ranji Trophy.

Fifer for Bhuvneshwar Kumar, and that gives UP a significant 102 run lead over Karnataka.
Services veteran Yashpal scores an unbeaten 250 against Tripura.
Robin Bist with 85 and Manoj Tiwary with an unbeaten 60 have found themselves among the runs.

Hundred for Manoj Tiwary. Wriddhiman Saha hasn't scored a 50 this time!. Ravindra Jadeja makes up for his failure with the bat, by picking up 6 wickets. Veteran Rashmi Parida scores a ton to give defending champions Rajasthan the first innings lead over MP.

Himachal's Paras Dogra scored his 3rd successive ton of the season. He and all-rounder Rishi Dhawan are key if Himachal are to manage a first innings lead against Andhra. They still need almost 150 more to do that, but the good thing is that Dogra and Dhawan have put on 69 already.

Manoj Tiwary missed his double hundred by 9 runs. Laxmi Shukla scores his first FC hundred in 2 years, Bengal very much in control of their game against Gujarat.
After his fifer in the first innings, Bhuvneshwar Kumar now adds a fine half-century for UP to stay in control of their game against Karnataka.
Jarkhand captain Shahbaz Nadeem continues to have a fine time with the ball, taking another fifer, this time against Goa to hand his side a 150 run first innings lead.
Rishi Dhawan continues to score important runs and take important wickets.
Unmukt Chand scores a 50 for Delhi but is out soon after.

Akshay Darekar has taken 4 wickets for Maharashtra to set up an interesting last innings chase. TN's big guns, Murali Vijay, Abhinav Mukund and S Badrinath failed 2nd time round as well, and Dinesh Karthik and Baba Aparajith haven't gone from the starts they managed. Maharashtra need 193 to win, but have already lost 2 wickets for 9. Lakshmipathy Balaji doing the damage for his side.
Ravindra Jadeja too had a 2nd batting failure, but Saurashtra lead Hyderabad by 246 with 6 wickets remaining in the 2nd innings. Last match hero Sagar Jogiyani who scored a double ton along with Jadeja's triple, is batting on 51. Jadeja will have a big role to play with the ball if Saurashtra are to win this outright.

After scoring a big ton, Manoj Tiwary picks up the wicket of Parthiv Patel, to put Bengal very much in charge of their game against Gujarat. Bhuvneshwar Kumar has just missed out on his ton against Karnataka.

Tamil Nadu bowled Maharashtra out for 88 to complete a win by 104 runs. Odisha have won against Haryana in a tence match, eventually by 4 wickets.
Bengal need 3 more wickets to complete their win over Gujarat.
Ravindra Jadeja has taken 3 out of the 4 Hyderabad wickets fallen, Hyderabad are chasing 345.
Karanataka's Manish Pandey has found himself among the runs for the first time this season, but is runout for 76. Ashok Menaria has taken a couple of wickets for Rajasthan. Mithun Manhas scored another ton for Delhi where Beroda are using negative tactics by bowling with an 8-1 leg side field and an outside leg line. Poor captaincy on a poor poor pitch from Ambati Rayudu. Rishi Dhawan has taken a fifer for Himachal, but match is heading towards a draw. Veteran Amol Muzumdar has scored his 2nd ton of the match for Andhra.

we keep an eye on the performance of India poetntiala dn those pushing themselves into contemtion for an India slot

1) Jadeja has scored runs in one game and 9 wickets in the other...I still believe he is better suited for ODIs and tests than T20.
Yuvraj's ability to pick wickets has shut out Jadeja's opportunities for now.

Warne got the best out of Jadeja as a player.....as out of Yusuf Pathan.


2) Tiwari's big score might see bengal to a win and continues to keep him in the frame....should tendulkar have a bad series......Tiwari and Rahane will be the next in line.

sami ahmed's return for Bengal makes them more potent and placed for an outright win.

3) Nadeem of Jharkhand continues to pick wicket.....he is a flattish bowler, but he might be in the reckoning for an India-A slot

4) Pankaj singh still picking wickets and Robin Bisht the most consistent Rajsathan batsman.

I am certain that Robin will in due course be in contention with Tiwari, rahane for a middle order slot

5) B. Kumar is getting runs with the bat and wickets with his brisk 130-135kph seam bowling almost every game.

I think he will get his break agaisnt Eng in the ODI series.

KPF, those with an outside chance, the likes of Rishi Dhawan are also doing well. Binny has had abad game so far in the 3rd round leading the side, but the seam bowling all-rounders Bhuvneshwar and Dhawan are having a pretty good time.
Agree on Jadeja, he should be a better bet in ODIs and tests and not in T-20s. Unlike India's reserve spinner, he's been taking wickets, so is Nadeem and Darekar.

Problem for the likes fo Rishi Dahwan is getting visibility......he is in a weak group, his team is unlikely to make it to knock outs.....he doesn't play IPL....so it is hard for him to get into the reckoning.

Yes I agree on Binny...he might get a break in ODIs.

Abhishek Nayar in an interview recently stated he is looking to make a break as a seam bowling allrounder.......and is having a good season.

I rate him very highly as a prospect for all forms

Think Dhawan, Bhuvneshwar and Binny are better bowlers. Nayar is, in my view more of a batsman who bowls a bit of seam up.

Real propper all-rounder material are Irfan Pathan and Ravindra Jadeja, and Stuart Binny of late. For Bhuvneshwar and Dhawan, the dominant aspect is their bowling.

msp83 wrote:Real propper all-rounder material are Irfan Pathan and Ravindra Jadeja, and Stuart Binny of late. For Bhuvneshwar and Dhawan, the dominant aspect is their bowling.

well I prefer an allrounder who gets in the sisde as a specialist bowler and to me Irfan and B. Kumar are in that category.

Binny is a batsman who can bowl like colingwood or Boparaa or Ganguly....whihc is considred a bit of an asset in India as most change bowlers are spinners.

Dhawan...I have no idea about his bowling.

There were once upon a time "allrounders" in ranji called JP Yadav, Joginderr.....who picked a lot of wickets.....but when we saw them they were clearly short of international class in batting and bowling

So that ends the 3rd round of Ranji Trophy. Only TN and Odisha managing outright wins. But unlike in the last round there was a lot more life in most of the pitches and teams had to earn their draws as Gujarat did against Bengal with a fine lower order hundred from Rujul Bhatt with support from number 9 and 10. Karnataka too managed to han on to their one point through determined fight from the lower order and wicketkeeper CM Gautam. Number 10 again holding out for long in the last session. Hyderabad too earned their draw against Saurashtra through some determined batting weathering Ravindra Jadeja on the last day.

The one disgraceful match of this round has been the one between Baroda and Delhi. Not even the first innings were finished, and Ambati Rayudu, Abhimanyu Chauhan and every other Baroda batsmen made big runs followed by hundreds from Delhi veterans Mithun Manhas and Rajit Bhatia and runs for Mohit Sharma and Unmukt Chand. An utter farce, and the host team should be deducted a point for preparing such garbage pitches. Daljit Singh has to earn his salary, he's been utterly useless.

Nobody seems to be able to get pitch penalties right!

Over here they tend to be too harsh on turning pitches - this match, which was in fact drawn with all results possible to the end of the game, saw Hants deducted 8 points for "excessive turn" - http://www.ecb.co.uk/stats/fixtures-results/score-card.html?Pfixture=com.othermedia.ecb.stats.Fixture-L-17083.

Now, whilst the fact that Samit Patel got 11 wickets might be a cause for worry, it would surely be better if turning pitches were encouraged rather than discouraged, given the problems English batsmen have against spin. Also note how the best players (and worryingly not English) in Neil McKenzie and Adam Voges coped with the situation better than the rest.

In my view a pitch where ridiculous runs are piled on (particularly if it offers no bounce) is worse than one where batsmen are challenged.

Shelsey93 wrote:Nobody seems to be able to get pitch penalties right!

Over here they tend to be too harsh on turning pitches - this match, which was in fact drawn with all results possible to the end of the game, saw Hants deducted 8 points for "excessive turn" - http://www.ecb.co.uk/stats/fixtures-results/score-card.html?Pfixture=com.othermedia.ecb.stats.Fixture-L-17083.

Now, whilst the fact that Samit Patel got 11 wickets might be a cause for worry, it would surely be better if turning pitches were encouraged rather than discouraged, given the problems English batsmen have against spin. Also note how the best players (and worryingly not English) in Neil McKenzie and Adam Voges coped with the situation better than the rest.

In my view a pitch where ridiculous runs are piled on (particularly if it offers no bounce) is worse than one where batsmen are challenged.

Completely agreed shelsey. Flat pitches are monsters designed to kill our game.

do you know Ranji Final will be a 6 day game....factoring for the flatness of the pitch beforehand

Very much possible, KPF!.
Aakash Chopra's suggestions on the points system is an interesting one. He advocates bonus batting and bowling points with batting bonus points limited to the first 125 overs.
http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/url/591847.html
I don't like the idea of 2nd innings bonus points, but one benefit of the same is that there will be more incentive to have a 2nd innings!!!.

Rajasthan seamer Pankaj Singh feels he hasn't got a fair deal from the national selectors.
Pankaj's only chance with the national team came in a tri nationans tournament in Zimbabwe where India send an experimental squad. Even there Pankaj just managed the one game and despite picking up 242 wickets from 64 FC matches, he had to watch the likes of Jaidev Unadkut being given a go with the test side even without playing a single Ranji match.
http://www.espncricinfo.com/ranji-trophy-2012/content/current/story/592166.html

for a no. of seasons I have been saying that Pankaj is given a raw deal...and sadly as he continues to perform consistently.......he has completely dropped from national reckoning

IPL title sponsorship rights sell at double the value at USD71 Million to Pepsi
whihc means it will be called Pepsi-IPL instead of DLF IPL....and the likes of Jermey Conny, Jackman, Morrison, Mbangwa etal would have to pracise calling a SIX....a Pepsi maximum.

Good news for the game of cricket that sees more money pouring in.

Disappointment for the IPL doomsday predictors


http://www.espncricinfo.com/india/content/current/story/592291.html

IPL news
IPL sells title rights to PepsiCo for $71m
ESPNcricinfo staff

November 21, 2012

Comments: 14 | Text size: A | A The BCCI has sold the title sponsorship of the IPL for the next five years to PepsiCo for Rs. 396.8 crore ($71.77 million approx), almost double the previous deal. The only other contender for the rights was Airtel, a telecommunications company, who bid Rs 316 crore ($57.27 million approximately).


DLF, a real estate company, were the previous title sponsors and they had paid Rs 200 crore ($36.25 million approx) for the five year period from 2008-12.

"So far our record of selling various properties of IPL has been very good," IPL governing council chairman Rajiv Shukla said after a meeting of BCCI's marketing committee in Mumbai. "We have doubled, tripled or quadrupled the amount while selling some of the properties.

"PepsiCo is one of the largest sponsors in world sport and we look forward to working with them over the next seasons. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank DLF for its confidence in the IPL to become the league's first title sponsor in 2008."

I haven't been around last week to give details of the previous Ranji round but here we go.
In the current round matches that have got underway today, there has been a greater balance between bat and ball. Baroda and Rajasthan were bowled out, Haryana lost 6 wickets, Maharashtra 7 and Mumbai also 7 wickets on the day. Parvinder Awana, Laxmi Shukla and young Punjab seamer Siddarth Kaul had a good time with the ball.
Ravindra Jadeja and S Badrinath scored unbeaten hundreds and under19 wicketkeeper Smit Patel also scored a hundred. Wasim Jaffer and Ambati Rayudu scored 80s and there were 50s for Abhishek Nayar and veteran batsman Shutanshu Kotak. Rohit Sharma failed with the bat and Abhinav Mukund and Dinesh Karthik also didn't do much.

The 2nd day of the 5th round comes to an end.
Ravindra Jadeja has scored an unbeaten triple century for Saurashtra. He has become the holder of most triple hundreds in Ranji trophy, going pass VVS Laxman and Wasim Jaffer. This is Jadeja's 2nd triple of the season, and he also has picked up 13 wickets so far including a sixfer.
People may have reasons to doubt Jadeja's test class, but how long can his record be ignored in the longer formats? Perhaps he should be given a chance at 6 if Yuvraj Singh continues to fail? Anyways, he can't do much worse than Suresh Raina did.
How far will Saurashtra bat on tomorrow? How would Jadeja fare with the ball? If he comes up with a good showing with the ball, I would say pick him for the 4th test squad ahead of Harbhajan Singh, and may be even consider him for a team place if Yuvraj failes to come up with the goods.

In other matches, Mumbai have gained an advantage against Bengal. Manoj Tiwary failed to build on a rather chancy 39 and Arindam was left stranded on 98.
Kerala's VA Jagadeesh was stranded on 199 and S Badrinath was out for 192. Parthiv Patel and Manprit Juneja also scored tons as did UP's Arish Alam. Unmukt Chand came back from an injury resulting from a ball smashing into his elbow from Mohinder Sharma of Haryana to score a fighting 50.
On the bowling front, Pankaj Singh has yet again produced the goods, taking yet another fifer against Punjab. The Punjab seamers had bowled the defending champions Rajasthan out for 222 yesterday, but Pankaj's performance with fine support from his seam bowling partners brought them right back into the match. Hope the selectors are really taking note. Mumbai's Ankeet Chavan took 4 wickets for his side against Bengal, and J&K's offspinning all-rounder Parwez Rassol took 7 wickets against Assam.

The other notable bowling performance came Delhi and India A seamer Parvinder Awana. Harshal Patel, coming back after an injury, has also been among the wickets for Haryana.

I think Jadeja's one-day efforts - which tailed off big-time after getting a big IPL contract will put the selectors off.

I really like him as a player. In Test cricket I guess he'd need to show that he's a better batsman than Yuvraj (as the bowling is about equal I'd say).

IMO Jadeja is a better all-round cricketer than Yurvaj IN THE LONGER FORM OF THE GAME.

Shelsey I am not sure Yuvraj's bowling, particularly in the longer formats, is as good as that of Jadeja. To start with, Jadeja's bowling experience at this level is a great deal more than that of Yuvraj, as the former has been the led spinner, in fact the led bowler for his side over the last 3 seasons or so. Even in ODIs, I would say Jadeja is a better bet than Yuvi is with the ball.