Mithun hat-trick powers Karnataka to victory
The fourth day of 2009-10 Ranji Trophy season saw three teams, Karnataka, Bengal and Gujarat open their season with victories each. There were some impressive performances both, with the bat and ball and some young talents rouse to the situation. Here’s a round-up of the first set of super-league matches…
Group B
Karnataka 405 (Pandey 194, Srivastava 4-75) and 311 for 5 dec (Pawan 78, Uthappa 56, Dravid 51*) beat Uttar Pradesh 279 (Amir 61, Praveen Gupta 55, Mithun 6-86) and 252 (Bhuvneshwar 63, Kaif 54, Mithun 5-95) by 185 runs
Pacer Abhinamyu Mithun was the show-stopper at the UP vs Karnataka Ranji encounter, as he annihilated the UP batting line-up with 11 wickets in his maiden Ranji Trophy game which also included a hat-trick.
UP were crashed to a 185 run defeat by the Rahul Dravid led side, as they failed to survive the last day with nine wickets in hand. After an ordinary last morning, Mithun came back strongly to dismiss Piyush Chawla, Amir Khan and RP Singh off successive deliveries, thus emulating Javagal Srinath’s feat of picking up a hat-trick on first-class debut.
Karnataka hence, opened their points account with a superb five points from their first game of the season.
Bengal 325 (Jhunjhunwala 95, Tiwary 88, Fallah 4-102) and 175 for 3 (Saha 59, Dasgupta 54) beat Maharashtra 179 (Bose 5-67) and 319 (Khadiwale 114, Motwani 59, Bose 5-57) by seven wickets
Bengal celebrated their return to the super-league group by registering a 7-wicket victory over Maharashtra in Pune. Chasing a target of 174, Deep Dasgupta and Wriddhiman Saha made the target easy for Bengal with their 119-run second wicket partnership. The base though, had been laid by fast bowler Ranadeb Bose, who finished with 10 wickets in the match, scalping a fifer in each innings.
Delhi 591 (Dhawan 224, Tehlan 55, Nagar 55) drew with Baroda 326 (Shah 63, Narwal 5-71) and 233 for 4 (Bilakhia 91, Solanki 69*)
Owing to a courageous knock of 91 by Azhar Bilakhia, Baroda escaped a huge defeat by the hands of Delhi. A gritty 120 run fourth-wicket stand between Bilakhia and Rakesh Solanki in the second innings saved Baroda from losing after being asked to follow-on. Apart from the resilience from the two batsmen, Delhi’s victory quest was also hindered by the non-availability of spinner Yogesh Nagar on the fourth day wicket, due to being no-balled for a suspect action.
It was a good match for Delhi wicketkeeper Puneet Bisht, who claimed seven catches in the first innings, which is a joint record for the most number of dismissals in an innings by an Indian wicketkeeper in first-class cricket.
Group A
Gujarat 270 (Parthiv 83, Dhiraj Singh 4-97) and 301 for 6 dec. (Niraj Patel 107, Parthiv 76, Thaker 52) beat Orissa 192 (Behera 78) and 220 (Mohanty 71*, Mehul 3-21, Yadav 3-52) by 159 runs
Gujarat emerged as the eventual winners in the low scoring tie at Ahmedabad owing to three wickets apiece by pacer Mehul Patel and leggie Salil Yadav, to dismiss Orissa for 220 in the final innings. Rakesh Mohanty was stranded at 71 as he found no support at the other end in his effort to save the match for Orissa.
Punjab 259 (Ravi Inder 104, Agarkar 4-43, Zaheer 4-60) and 311 for 7 (Kaul 62, Ravi Inder 58, Gambhir 50*) drew with Mumbai 471 for 9 dec. (Powar 125*, Kukreja 90, Khanvilkar 87, Ablish 4-53)
Riding on the last innings half-centuries from Uday Kaul, Ravi Inder and debutant Gaurav Gambhir, Punjab succeeded in their bid to deny the defending champions their first win of the season. Trailing Mumbai by 212 in the second innings, Ravi Inder and Kaul got Punjab off to a good start but then lost three wickets in a jiffy. Gambhir (50*) and Pankaj Dharmani (46) then came to their rescue and hung on against the likes of Zaheer Khan, Ramesh Powar and Agarkar. Zaheer, who is on his way to making a comeback into the Indian team after an injury lay-off scalped seven wickets in the match.
Hyderabad 328 (Abhinav 73, Arjun 71, Malik 4-67) and 189 (Thakur 5-22) drew with Himachal Pradesh 350 (Dogra 123, Mannu 68) and 136 for 8 (Ojha 5-52)
Himachal Pradesh survived the five-wicket haul from Pragyan Ojha in the last innings to draw their opening match against Hyderabad. After being bowled out for 189, mainly due to HP skipper Ashok Thakur’s 5-22, Hyderabad came at a striking distance of a victory when they reduced HP for 136-8 during their fourth innings chase of 212. But once again captain Thakur came to HP’s rescue to save the game for them and pocket 3 points.
Railways 327 (Bangar 163*, Mukund 3-5) and 178 for 2 (TP Singh 63*, Cheluvaraj 61*) drew with Tamil Nadu 337 (Badrinatah 111, Vijay, Kartik 4-100)
After batting his team through to three points of the first innings lead with a courageous 32, C Ganpathy almost decided the fate of the game, which was a draw. Badrinath and Bangar registered their centuries while Murali Kartik finished with 4-100.
