Indian domestic season 2005-06

[Pratters]

The semi finals kick off today at the Wankhede and Eden Gardens.

Mumbai vs Uttar Pradesh

Mumbai felt the absence of in-form Jaffer in the loss against Maharasthra. They face a strong U.P. side with players like Md. Kaif, Suresh Raina, Jyoti Yadav and Piyush Chawla.

Mumbai has the in-form Amol Muzumdar, rookie opener Sahil Kukreja (who has been doing well) and Ramesh Powar. They are low on confidence and look weaker against U.P. strangely despite having home advantage.

Bengal vs Baroda

Bengal too look to be the weaker of the two sides despite having home advantage versus Baroda. Baroda has a solid attack with the return of Rakesh Patel and Rajesh Powar. Yusuf Pathan is already there. Bengal would be riding on Rohan Gavaskar (who has fever ominously) and rookie Avishek Jhunjhunwala. If there is any where Bengal's Sourashish Lahiri and S.S.Paul can hope to be effective, it would be at home at Eden.

 

[Arjun]

END OF DAY ONE:

Mumbai v/s UP– Mumbai are all out for 199, with change seamer Pravin Kumar (his name is still a controversy, but won't be if UP win the tournament, which is possible) taking four (and unfortunately overstepped five times) and Srivastava taking three. Piyush Chawla, whom many have been observing, just took two for 63. For Mumbai, the top scorer was rookie opener Sahil Kukreja with 49, but the rest just caved in. Powar, however, got 29, outscoring many from the top six. Hmmm......why was young change-seamer and middle-order batsman Abhishek Nair not played?

Baroda v/s Bengal– Baroda were all out for 241, and it was very much a Kiran Powar and Jacob Martin performance. Powar scored a dogged 110, while Martin scored 51. Find of the series Yusuf Pathan got out for just five. Bengal's opening bowler SS Paul got 5 for 63, while his partner, the fiery Ranadeb Bose, got 3 for 83.

 

[Arjun]

Folks....there's a lot more cricket going on apart from that over-hyped India/Pakistan Test series....please check in here at least once.....

 

[Pratters]

Bengal, surprisingly as far as I am concerned, have a first inning lead over Baroda. The unlikely hero has been Subhomoy Das. Subhomoy Das who? The same guy who averages a mere 35.84 in First Class matches. He is also the guy who’s 83, along with Jhunjhuwala’s 139 were instrumental in taking Bengal to the semis. Kudos to Shib Pal for putting Bengal in a position to take a first inning lead. But the batting collapses in the past have been all too familiar. In that regard the efforts of the young guns like Das and Jhunjhwala (even though he has made a duck in this match) and of course Rohan Gavaskar have to be commended.

Uttar Pradesh has taken their first inning lead versus Mumbai after bundling them for 199. Kaif, Raina and Rizwan Shamshad have been instrumental in that.

Now the question iscan India, Baroda or Mumbai script a resurgence. Time is obviously a factor.

 

[honestbharani]

I expect 2 of the 3 games to be drawn, including the Ind-Pak test.

 

[TIF]

We might see something extra-ordinary happen this time in the Ranji-trophy with a UP v Bengal final looking the most likely.

Bengal, have taken a massive 1st innings lead over Baroda and with 2 days still left to go, it looks as if Bengal will go for some quick runs, declare and give themselves a huge chance of victory having over 5 sessions to bowl Baroda out. Also, Pratyush, the semi-finals and finals are 5-day matches and not 4-day matches and at this moment, a Bengal win looks more likely than a draw. If it was a 4-day match, even then Bengal could have pressed for a victory.

UP, have had a complete turnaround in their fortunes since Kaif came in and also with their new find, Pravin Kumar, look like the favourites in this match against Mumbai. UP, just like Bengal, took a 1st innings lead and then bowled Mumbai out for 264 after reducing them to 48/4 at one stage with Pravin Kumar taking the early wickets. Pravin Kumar, looks to be a tall and strong-built cricketer and should be given a go in the India"A" team. He has already taken 7 wickets in this match to go with 10 wickets in the last match against Andhra. Also, he batted well in the last match and in this match against Mumbai, he has been tried out as a pinch-hitter even opening the innings, but was unsuccesful. Hopefully, he does well with both bat and ball in the finals provided UP gets there. At this moment, UP are 39/1, needing 175 more runs wo tin with 9 wickets in hand and Kaif is still batting with Raina yet to come.

Also, this post marks my slight return to cricketweb.net after 9 days, but unfortunately I cant be too regular out here now.

 

[Pratters]

A UP-Bengal final indeed looks likely here. I am surprised regarding Bengal but was expecting UP to go into the final.

 

[Pratters]

Bengal, have taken a massive 1st innings lead over Baroda and with 2 days still left to go, it looks as if Bengal will go for some quick runs, declare and give themselves a huge chance of victory having over 5 sessions to bowl Baroda out. Also, Pratyush, the semi-finals and finals are 5-day matches and not 4-day matches and at this moment, a Bengal win looks more likely than a draw. If it was a 4-day match, even then Bengal could have pressed for a victory.

I know. And I see your point as well. Just that I am anticipating Baroda to make a big score in the second inning and not collapse like in the first inning.

 

[Pratters]

Sourashish Lahiri 62 and Shibsagar Singh 40* means Bengal finish with a massive 619! No nothing to do with Rey Mysterio

The pitch likely to be really flat here.

U.P. is on its way to victory in the other match.

 

[Arjun]

Uttar Pradesh have won. It's a pity it wasn't a harrd-fought win, but rather a case of Mumbai's youngsters not being up to the mark, or even ready for FC cricket yet. That said, the youngsters from UP combined well and played as a team, with old hands Zaidi, Pandey and Shamshad guiding them well. Piyush Chawla was a little off coulour and not quite the next Anil Kumble, but he did his job. Srivastava got a few, Zaidi tormented the Mumbai batsmen just as much as he did back in 1998, without as much success. The real hero, though, was Pravin Kumar, who took 7 wickets and though he wasn't so effective with the bat this time, he got the team off to a rapid start. Raina missed out on a 50, but Kaif got to 64 and they reached the victory target safely.

 

[Pratters]

Shekhar Joshi - 0 off 71 balls and still batting.

 

[Pratters]

0 off 100 balls now!

 

[adharcric]

that has got to be the greatest unbeaten 0 in the history of cricket, what do you think?

 

[Pratters]

Helped draw a match where which wouldn't matter as Bengal would qualify for the final any way. Amazing stuff.

Don't know if/how many times stuff like this has been done.

 

[TIF]

That amazing 100 ball 0 innings from S Joshi, helped Baroda draw a match which they always appeared to lose, but that didnt have enough consquence as to what team qualifies for the Ranji finals with Bengal making themselves sure of a final berth by taking a huge 1st innings lead. This could be the longest 0 in first-class cricket, although I know of more super-slow innings, but the batsmen there, atleast managed to score a few runs and not stay on for 0s.

The final, now starts on 29 Jan, meaning that the top players wont be available to play the Ranji finals, but that wouldnt make a difference as both teams have only 1 player out on national duty. And we will see UP play without RP Singh and Bengal play without Saurav Ganguly.

 

[Arjun]

DNA Mumbai said that the Mumbai fielders missed several chances–

• NS Shetty dropped a sitter on Sunday
• Yesterday, there were two major misses, starting with a drop by Vinit Indulkar when UP were at 54/2, and Kaif, then on 17, made 64.
• Then Raina could have been run out due to a mix-up, but Onkar Khanvilkar threw a weak one and he was saved.

Kiran More was unimpressed with the batting, saying that nonew of them converted their starts into big scores. He was heavily critical of Kaif and Raina, but said nothing of the bowlers. Piyush Chawla was decent, but it will be a tough ask to displace Kumble or even Harbhajan. Pravin Kumar, who has a better chance of making an Indian Test side, was still ignored by the selectors, media and fans. I have seen a few pictures of Kumar, and he's over 6'2" (and maybe well over), with a good build. He can be a good alternative to Munaf Patel and Joginder Sharma, and being an unknown quantity, he can be a surprise package.

 

[honestbharani]

so it is Bengal Vs UP... Good to see new sides coming up. Will RP be available for UP during the final? What about Kaif? Even he may not be available. And if Sourav isn't picked for ODIs, will he be available for Bengal?

 

[Pratters]

The final is from Sunday and RP and Ganguly are both going to miss this encounter.

The interesting parts were More blasting Kaif and Raina for not converting 50s into big scores!

Also the last time Bengal won the title, it was a wicket keeper who was the captain - Sambaran Banerjee. Is it a lucky sign for Bengal that Dasgupta is the captain?

Bengal has played well this season and I thought they could reach at least the semis despite Arjun not thinking too much of them early in the season.

The final has been shifted to Lucknow from Kanpur and UP does have a slight favourite tag and home advantage. Bengal has played as a team as well with every one performing.

It should be an awesome final!

 

[Arjun]

Yesterday's DNA also carried an article on Kaif's captaincy. The UP team were in dire straits, until Kaif entered. That article praises Kaif's energetic, exuberant nature as captain, and Kaif himself says he enjoys leading. He's unconventional but effective and the players respond well to him. That was fresh relief from all the Mumbai-bashing in the papers, and Kaif's a better contender for captain than the lazy Sehwag.

 

[honestbharani]

Sehwag is not a bad captain, but Kaif could be groomed as well, maybe to take over from Sehwag. I think Kaif is a good 2 or 3 years younger than Viru. And he has been known to be a good captain since his under 19 days as well.