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By Rajiv Risodkar
Gujarat’s thrilling victory over Andhra aided by ‘batter’ Arzan Nagwaswalla’s heroics, second consecutive wins for Baroda, Gujarat, Vidarbha, Nagaland and Goa, Bengal’s unfortunate wash out against Bihar, Karnataka’s second consecutive rain affected one pointer and thrilling escapes for Madhya Pradesh, Delhi and Odisha marked the second round of the Ranji Trophy. Twin centuries by Abdul Samad, Double century by Cheteshwar Pujara, and a first ton by 17 year old Mumbai boy Ayush Mhatre and superb bowling efforts by Manishankar Mura Singh and Lalith Mohan (albeit with contrasting results) were the highlights of the round. In the plate group, Agni Chopra was back to his scoring ways with knocks of 110 & 238*.
In a refreshing change, only six of the 18 toss winning captains chose to field first while 12 chose to bat. Out of the six who chose to field Meghalaya, Services, Hyderabad and Himachal lost the match outright. Delhi was able to save the match by the skin of the teeth but conceded 674/6 against Tamil Nadu after putting them in. Karnataka also chose to field but there was little play in the match.
Group ‘A’ saw Mumbai defeat Maharashtra by 9 wickets at home due to Maharashtra’s collapse in both the innings. Maharashtra started badly after winning the toss, being skittled out for 126. In the second innings they were 274 for 2 but were bowled out for 388 despite 2 batters scoring hundreds and one scoring a 98, the three contributing 344 together. Mumbai had a ton from the 17-year-old Ayush Mhatre and ‘out of favour’ Shreyash Iyer. Tripura, after a first match wash out defeated Meghalaya by an innings with 11 wickets from Mura Singh. Services almost saved a point against Baroda who have had a great start to the season. Shivalik Sharma and Vishnu Solanki helped Baroda put up a score of above 450. They chose not to impose the follow-on despite a lead of 206, but scored 134 in 14.4 overs in the second innings to give Services a target of 341. Services lost 9 wickets for 202 but the tenth wicket pair of Arjun Sharma and the injured Varun Choudhary battled for 22.3 overs. Raj Limbani dismissed Choudhary with about 10 overs left in the match. The Jammu & Kashmir – Odisha tie was also a nail biting affair. J & K had Abdul Samad scoring centuries in both the innings (127 off 117 balls and 108 off 108 balls) but Odisha’s Govind Poddar (133*) added 39 with the last two batters to earn a two-run lead for his team. Odisha had lost 7 for 93 chasing 269 in the second innings but they batted out the remaining 15 overs to save the three points they had for the first innings lead.
All the four matches in Group ‘B’ had outright results. Andhra almost pulled off a miracle against Gujarat after following on, but it was Nagwaswalla who was the real star. Batting first Gujarat were 203 for 8 before skipper Chintan Gaja (92) and Arzan Nagwaswalla (82*) got them to 367. Andhra were dismissed for 213 and had to follow on but batted positively in the second innings to give Gujarat a target of 144. Gujarat lost 6 wickets for 69, recovered to be at 127 for 6 at one stage, before they lost three wickets to be at 131 for 9. The cool headed Arzan then scored the remaining runs for his team. For Andhra, the left arm spinner Lalith Mohan bowled almost unchanged (just one over break) and took 7/76 in 24.3 overs. Vidarbha too had a second successive win, beating Puducherry by 120 runs. Puducherry were bowled out for 82 in 24 overs on a turner. Vidarbha’s star was left arm spinner Harsh Dubey who took 7 wickets in the match besides scoring 76 and 37 in the two innings. Rajasthan have to thank Deepak Chahar for their win over Himachal. His stellar spell on the second day helped his team to skittle out Himachal 98. The four centurions of the previous match (Arora, Chopra, Kalsi and Sen) could manage just 16 runs among them as Chahar (10-3-30-5) ran amock. It was tough to recover for Himachal after this shock. Rajasthan though, will rue losing two wickets in the chase of 25 thus frittering a chance to earn the bonus seventh point. Uttarakhand’s win over Hyderabad was due to Deepak Dhapola’s five in the first and Swapnil Singh’s six wickets in the second innings.
Group ‘C’ has been hit by the weather badly. Karnataka has been on the receiving end of two matches having no result. Their match against Kerala had play only for 50 overs. Worse was the case with Bengal who would have expected to earn full points against Bihar. But not a single ball was bowled at Kalyani. Punjab came very near to beating Madhya Pradesh but the ninth wicket pair of Himanshu Mantri and Avesh Khan battled for 24.1 overs to save MP the blushes. Punjab had recovered on Day One after being 48 for 5 to post 277. 21-year-old Salil Arora making his debut scored 101 to lead his team’s recovery. Haryana scored 453 against UP and had the opportunity to force them to follow on but the last wicket pair of Yash Dayal and Ankit Rajpoot added 85 runs for UP to make Haryana bat again.
Only one outright result was possible in Group ‘D’ with Chandigarh registering a surprise win over Assam. Chandigarh’s star was Raj Angad Bawa who scored 146 in the first innings besides taking 4 wickets in the match. Chhattisgarh vs Saurashtra match did not produce a result as Chhattisgarh with Sanjeet Desai (146) and Amandeep Khare (203*) scored 578 but Saurashtra with the master of such situations Cheteshwar Pujara (234) managing a draw. Both sides had to be content with one point. The Jharkhand vs Railways match had an exciting battle for first innings lead. Jharkhand with hundreds from Virat Singh and Ishan Kishan scored 417. Railways replied strongly and were 410 for 6 at one stage but collapsed to 414 all out. Tamil Nadu lost a chance to get full points against Delhi despite having the hosts on rope, but the ninth wicket pair survived 5 overs to deny Tamil Nadu. For TN Sai Sudarshan, Washington Sundar and Pradosh Paul scored hundreds in the first innings. Sundar did well with the ball too, scalping three in each innings.
Plate group had all three matches giving outright results. Goa and Nagaland beat Sikkim and Manipur for their second consecutive wins. Mizoram’s Agni Chopra scored centuries in both innings in his team’s victory against Arunanchal, while Dega Nischal got his second hundred for Nagaland. J Suchith too continued his good run with the ball.
After two rounds, Baroda have taken a lead in Group ‘A’ with the two victories. Tripura and Services are at second and third with 8 and seven points. Mumbai is on six points. Group ‘B’ has Gujarat and Vidarbha at 12 points followed by Rajasthan at 9 and Himachal at 7. Haryana with 10 points and Kerala (7 points) are early leaders in Group ‘C’. The favourites Bengal (4), Karnataka (2) and Madhya Pradesh (2) are languishing behind in the Group. Haryana have already played Bihar while Bengal lost the opportunity to beat Bihar. Rest of the teams will fancy getting seven points against Bihar. A team not able to do so will feel having lost out. Tamil Nadu has 10 points in Group ‘D’ and Railways 7. Jharkhand and Chandigarh have 6 each. The plate group has Nagaland and Goa as the top two teams, and this should continue till the end.
33 centuries were scored in the second round taking the number to 56 which included 9 hundreds in plate group. The number of double tons stands at 7. Shubham Khajuria (305), Sai Sudarshan (295), Ankit Kalsi and Manan Hingrajia (268 runs each) are early leaders in the run scorer’s chart. Agni Chopra (428) and Dega NIschal (352) are the runaway leaders in Plate group. 17 five wicket hauls and two ten wicket hauls were achieved in the second round. The total for two rounds is 35 five wicket hauls and four ten wicket hauls (7+1 in plate group). Lalith Mohan (15), Mahesh Pithiya (13) Jagjit Singh, Tanush Kotian and Sagar Udeshi (12 wickets) are the leading wicket takers. The two former Karnataka men J Suchith and KC Cariappa are at the top in the Plate Group with 17 wickets each.
The third round begins on 26th October. Saurashtra badly needing points should see them playing on a turner at home. Bengal and Madhya Pradesh too would also be searching for full points at home. Karnataka would be hoping for weather to turn for them at Patna. Gujarat would travel to Jaipur hoping for at least first innings points against Rajasthan.