Ranji Trophy 2019-20, Round 9 – Sanjay Yadav’s rare double, Aquib Khan's 5-wicket haul, 60000th first-class match and more stats

The group stage of Ranji Trophy 2019-20 concluded with the 9th round matches without any major surprises. Andhra suffered their 2nd straight defeat as they went down to Gujarat by 8 wickets as Axar Patel scored a fifty and claimed 10 wickets. However, the defeat couldn’t stop Andhra from making it to but was quarters.

Karnataka sealed quarter-final berth with an outright win against Baroda in their first match of the season at the Chinnaswamy. The Mumbai and Vidarbha team had to settle with first innings draw rather than bowing with wins after failing to make it to the knockout stage.

All the statistical highlights from the 9th round of the Ranji Trophy 2019-20 matches:

2 – Sanjay Yadav became only the 2nd player to complete the double of 500+ runs and 50+ wickets in a Ranji Trophy season. He finished the 2019-20 season with 603 runs and 55 wickets for Meghalaya. Sunil Joshi in the 1995/96 season scored 529 runs and claimed 52 wickets for Karnataka.

Stats: Sanjay Yadav records best-ever all-round performance in a Ranji Trophy season

0/7 – Thangarasu Natarajan failed to make it to Tamil Nadu’s XI against Saurashtra which meant he ended the 2019-20 season without scoring a run despite batting in seven innings.

Only Kerala’s Govindamenon Jayakumar batted as many innings in a Ranji Trophy season without scoring a run. Jayakumar failed to score a run in the 9 innings he batted in the 1990/91 season which included five ducks.

Natarajan, in fact, has not scored a run in any of his last 10 innings in first-class cricket which makes him the first Indian to spend ten consecutive innings in first-class cricket without scoring a run.

Stats: Thangarasu Natarajan goes run less in 10 consecutive first-class innings

16y 49d – Aquib Khan became the youngest player to take a 5-wicket haul in first-class cricket for Uttar Pradesh. He was 16 years and 49 days old at the start of the match against Himachal Pradesh. Previous youngest was Praveen Gupta at the age of 16 years and 334 days in the 2003-04 season.

Aquib is also the 2nd youngest Indian pacer ever to claim a 5-wicket haul in first-class cricket. Left-arm pacer Biren Ghosh of Bihar was 16 years and 34 days old at the time of his maiden FC 5-fer in 1961/62 season.

Stats: 16 year-old Aquib Khan takes a 5-wicket haul for Uttar Pradesh in Ranji Trophy

154.66 – Sarfaraz Khan ended the 2019-20 Ranji season with a batting average of 154.66 which is the 3rd highest for any player with 750+ runs in a single Ranji edition. Sarfaraz aggregated 928 runs in the nine innings he batted across six matches this season with help of three hundreds and two fifties.

Stats: Sarfaraz Khan ends Ranji Trophy 2019-20 with a batting average over 150

171 – Goa’s Smit Patel against Mizoram and Chandigarh’s Gurinder Singh against Manipur during this round completed their double century in exactly 171 balls. Only two players are known to have completed their Ranji Trophy double tons in fewer balls – 123 balls by Ravi Shastri and 156 balls by Rajesh Borah.

Stats: Fastest double centuries by Indians in First-class cricket

609 – Chandigarh took a first-innings lead of 609 runs against Manipur in the game hosted by Kolkata. Chandigarh declared their first innings on 672/8 before they bowled out Manipur to just 63 runs. The 609-run lead is now the 4th highest in a first-class match in India. Interestingly, the match between Chandigarh and Manipur was the 60,000th match in the history of first-class cricket.

Stats: Chandigarh thumps Manipur by innings and 405 runs in the Ranji Trophy game

1340 – Rahul Dalal ended the 2019-20 Ranji Trophy season with 1340 runs which are the 2nd most by any player in a single edition of Ranji Trophy. VVS Laxman holds the record for most runs in a Ranji season having scored 1415 runs in the 1999-00 season.

Stats: Rahul Dalal of Arunachal Pradesh ends Ranji Trophy 2019-20 season with 1340 runs