Ranji Trophy 2016-17: Quarterfinal, Day 1 Review

The prestigious Ranji Trophy 216/17 has now reached its business end with eight teams – Mumbai, Hyderabad, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Odisha, Haryana and Jharkhand – today getting on the field to play the quarterfinal of the biggest domestic competition in India.

The opening day was an entirely bowler dominating day. All the four-game saw the bowlers enjoy a great deal of success without breaking much sweat leaving the batsmen struggling to find ways of survival.

Mumbai survived a scare against the underdogs Hyderabad who reduced them to 34 for 4 at the Shaheed Veer Narayan Singh International Stadium, Raipur. Fortunately skipper Aditya Tare (73) and Siddesh Lad (101*) along with Abhishek Nayar (46*) came to the rescue and helped Mumbai end at a respectable 250/5 at stumps.

We can consider Mumbai really lucky to have escaped the embarrassment but Karnataka wasn’t that lucky and had no one to help their sail through the choppy waters. Playing against Tamil Nadu, the 2015 champions were bundled out for just 88 by the TN bowlers at the Dr. Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium, Vizag.

Aswin Crist (3/31) and T Natarajan (3/18) were their top wicket takers. Tamil Nadu also faced the same situation as leg-spinner Arvind Sreenath (2/14)  and Stuart Binny (1/18) bowled impressive spells to restrict TN from taking a thorough advantage of their low first innings total.

Gujarat also faced a challenging time but somehow maintained solidity finishing with 197/6 against Odisha after Chirag Gandhi (62*) and RB Kalaria (59*) scripted lower order fightback. Haryana and Jharkhand game at the Motibaug Cricket Ground, Vadodara was bit different as it saw some stability from the batting side.

The game, unfortunately, had to be stopped after Gujarat batting first weren’t comfortable with the behaviour of the pitch. Gujarat skipper Parthiv Patel who walked in to bat at No.4 took a hit from a particular delivery that was bowled at good length but bounced nastily.

He complained about the misbehaviour of the wicket to the on-field umpires Yeshwant Barde and CK Nandan. They had a discussion about it and the players eventually walked off. The ground staff is working on the wicket and trying to roll it with a light roller to try and settle the pitch.

Haryana, after being choosing to bat first, managed 251/7 at stumps despite their batsman failing to convert their starts. Left-arm spinner Shahbaz Nadeem snapped 5/75 to end up as the most successful bowlers.

Brief Scores:

Mumbai v Hyderabad

Mumbai: 250/5 (Siddhesh Lad 101; CV Milind)

Tamil Nadu v Karnataka

Karnataka 88 (Manish Pandey 28; Aswin Crist 3/31)

Tamil Nadu 111 (Vijay Shankar 34; Arvind Sreenath 2/14)

Gujarat v Odisha

Gujarat 197/6 (Chirag Gandhi 63; Deepak Behera 3/36)

Haryana v Jharkhand

Haryana 251/7 (Rajat Paliwal 42/; Shahbaz Nadeem 5/75)