Irani Trophy : Ranji Champs (Bombay) v/s Rest of India - Day 1

Irani Trophy : Ranji Champs (Bombay) v/s Rest of India - Day 1

Post by Sadiq Yus » Fri, 14 Oct 1994 17:35:33

        A report and scorecard from the first day, courtesy Ajay Mittal
("Acme" on irc) in Pune. The report was summarized from the Indian
Express, Pune. (Apologies for the editing - this is how it showed up,
and it's too much of a pain to fix it :-)

*************************************************
                          Manjrekar slams maiden ton
                           Bombay 311 for 5 outset.

                              by N Prabhaker

                          SANJAY Manjrekar con-
                          tinued from where he had
                          left last season. The Bom-
                          bay skipper was in crack-
                          ling form on Wednesday as he
                          hammered a stroke-filled 117, his
                          maiden century in the Irani Tro-
                          phy cricket championship, on the
                          opening day against Rest of India
                          at ***hede Stadium.

                          The Ranji champions lost three
                          wickets for 38 runs in the post
                          lunch session, the slide which
                          began with the wicket of Manjre-
                          kar, but still managed to finish the
                          dai with a healthy score, thanks
                          to their opener Zubin Bharucha's
                          dour unbeaten knock of 98.

                          The Bombay openers Bharucha
                          and Sunil More were edgy at the
                          outset. More hung his bat out
                          often to Prashant Vaidya and
                          Bharucha inner-edged Iqbal Sid-
                          diqui to be very nearly bowled.
                          However, it was the vagaries of
                          the strip which had a say in the fall
                          of the first wicket.

                          Bharucha had a life on 35 when
                          wicket-keeper Vijay Yadav went
                          the wrong way and failed to latch
                          on to the snick off Siddiqui.

                          Manjrekar was all over the
                          spinners and he smote left-arm
                          Subramaniam for three successive
                          fours- the last two were swept -
                          and a six over mid-wicket. He hit
                          21 boundaries and the six in his
                          134-ball knock before another
                          knee-height delivery by Siddiqui
                          had him plumb before the wicket.
                          But having been at the wicket for
                          161 minutes it was suicidal on
                          Manjrekar's part to have gone for
                          a wild pull. The 163-run second
                          wicket partnershlp, which was
                          threatening to take the Rest bowling
                          apart, was realised in 41.2 overs.

                       Amol Muzumdar fell cheaply
                       while trying to work Siddiqui on
                       the leg side only to edge.

    (* sound of a strong man weeping bitter tears, in the background *)

                       Sameer Dighe hit a brisk 57 in a
                       77-run stand for the fifth wicket
                         with Bharucha. The stocky Bom-
                         bay wicket-keeper played the only
                         way he knew - to belt the ball. He
                         ng fours and a six

        ( here the report was most unfortunately cut off - it was pretty
close to the end of the day, though, methinks. Suffice it to say that
Dighe was brilliant, as usual :-)

********************************

Scorecard : (end of day 1)

Bombay (Ist inning batting):

Z Bharucha            not out                    98
S More                        b    Siddiqui      10
S Manjrekar       lbw         b    Siddiqui     117
A Muzumdar        c Yadav     b    Siddiqui       2
S Kulkarni        c Rathore   b    Kapoor        12
S Dighe           c Mehra     b    Vaidya        57
S Bahutule            not out                     0
Extras      ( 2bb, 8nbj 41b, Iw)                 15

(this is how it showed up :-). I presume 2b, 8nb, 4lb, 1w, but am
not certain).

Total        (for five wickets off 92 overs)    311

Fall of wickets:    1-27, 2-190, 3-193, 4-228, 5-311

Rest of India Bowling:

Prashant Vaidya              15-5-36-1
Iqbal  Siddiqui              19-1-83-3
Obaid Kamal                  18-5-50-0
Sunil Subramanium            19-4-63-0
Ashish Kapoor                21-4-73-1

******************************************************

        Not a bad start by Bombay, especially if the pitch holds
"vagaries", as the reporter put it. 311 in a day is pretty good going.
However, it may not be as good as it sounds - I dont know what the full
team is, but it seems to me that Bombay has gone with 5 bowlers for this
game. If that is the case, Barucha and Bahutule represent the last
recognized batting pair for Bombay and it is up to them to carry the
total to at least 450 and beyond. Iam presuming the 4 remaining bats are
Ankola, Mhambrey, and any 2 of Manish Patel, Abey Kuruvilla and Sanjay
Patil. (Am wondering if Bombay opted to go with a 4-pronged pace
attack in this game :-)
        Also, I'd like to condemn the non-selection of Jatin Paranjpe
for this game - a young, talented lefty like him surely deserves a couple
of chances more than he has been given.
        We dont know what the ROI side is either, but one can guess most
of it ( Vikram Rathore, Ajay Mehra, Vijay Yadav, Prashant Vaidya, Iqbal
Siddiqui, Obaid Kamal, Sunil Subramanium and Ashish Kapoor are all
mentioned in the card). If all these are actually in the 11, its a
pretty iffy piece of selection, IMHO. That leaves only 2 spots open,
both to be filled by batsmen. And I can think of at least 4-5 very
deserving contenders ( Amre, Shantanu Sugwekar, Rizwan Shamshad, Rahul
Dravid, Saurav Ganguly, to name but a few). Most, if not all, of these
batsmen deserve to be in ahead of Mehra and possibly even Rathore, IMHO.
        Also, of course, it is more than slightly surprising to see
Sunil Subramanium being picked for the left arm orthodox spinners spot
ahead of Utpal Chatterjee - not that Subramanium isnt good, but Utpal
has been touted as a national contender recently, and one would have
thought he would have been picked here (especially after his
performances in the last couple of seasons). And neither Hirwani nor
Ananthapadmanabhan have made it into the side - another surprise.

           Sadiq [ hoping for a Sairaj ton tomorrow :-) ] Yusuf

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