Indian domestic season 2006-07

[adharcric]

Very impressed by Tiwary. Definitely one for the future.

[Jono]

Let's go Sourav!

[Pratters]

The first inning collapse proved death for Bengal. Was always going to be tough to come back and win such a tough match after getting into that position. Disappointing loss because of the first inning but at least Bengal tried to make an impossible come back. Well done to Mumbai and glad that it was a final played by the first xi's and top stars. Brought at least some credibility back to the prestigious trophy.

[Jono]

Ganguly, Tiwary and Gavaskar almost got them there but Zaheer Khan and AA made sure that didn't happen. What a ridiculous collapse just before tea, that must have been unbelievable bowling from Zak.

[silentstriker]

I'm glad that the Indian team stars came back, but a bit dissapointed that the estbalished stars did well and not many of the others (except 1-2). Would have liked to see some others put their hands up.

[silentstriker]

9 wickets for Khan though, very well played.

[Dasa]

Anyone know anything about Ravichandran Ashwin?
Just saw that he was awarded domestic bowler of the year and went and looked up his stats...pretty amazing performance, especially in your first season.

[honestbharani]

yeah, but you have to take into account that the last match was played on a raging turner. TN were THAT desperate to get a win and confirm avoiding relegation.

[Arjun]

Academic commitments now done, I can now get back here. Please don't discuss typical Indian team selections on this thread. It's dedicated to Indian domestic cricket. Solutions thrown up by the domestic season may be mentioned. And there are many.
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First-Class Season wrap, 2006-07

This has been an eventful season, complete with heroes, controversies successes, disappointments and even a few laugh lines, especially from a forgotten hero from Delhi. The Duleep Trophy had some real competition from abroad, with Sri Lanka sending a full-strength reserve team that forced its way to the finals with two victories. That wasn't enough to stop North Zone from winning it.

Mumbai, with 36 Ranji titles to their credit but two years without a title, have had a very inconsistent season, starting dreadfully but for a turnaround against Gujarat, on the back of which they stormed into the semis, then the finals. Their final lineup, with Tendulkar, Jaffer, Zaheer, Agarkar and Powar, looked likely to win the final, and Title Number 37. And they did.

They have played like a team, with every player, one to eleven, frontlines to reserves, creating value in the team. Even as the Indian team's fielding was declining, the Mumbai team's was good, throughout the season, primarily due to the presence of several youngsters in the team. While the all-round abilities of off-spinner Powar and wicketkeeper Samant (limited as this may seem) were never in doubt, two youngsters, Wilkin Mota and Abhishek Nair, were very impressive with bat, ball and on the field. Nair is a middle-order batsman not averse to playing a big innings and is also a hard hitter of the ball, but more importantly, he's also bowled long stocks of medium-pace to support the strikers. Wilkin Mota, a swing bowler, has often scored vital runs in the lower order, as familiar stories of the top six falling quickly and the tail-end rescuing them came true again.

On the other hand, out in the North, the talented Delhi team's fortunes began to decline. Some of their players are exceptionally talented. However, they have not done well as a team, with a string of lost points and a defeat pushing them off the top spot. This team has been plagued with bad selections, and a recent CricInfo article shows how selectors are cheated into getting a few players into age group teams. The DDCA, the local association, is once again proven corrupt and incompetent, and cricket in the capital suffered. So much, that their very own star players are contemplating shifting elsewhere.

Virender Sehwag, in the news for the wrong reasons, has contemplated shifting to Haryana, and even Akash Chopra may do so, while our forgotten hero may go to Maharashtra. While it would be interesting to see how a Maharashtra attack with Nehra and Munaf performs, it's definitely a tragedy for this team that has contributed some of India's best players in history. One may feel for the tall young seamer Ishant Sharma, who's an obvious India prospect post-World Cup, stuck in a hopeless team.

Haryana was one unfortunate team, who were sunk into Plate by the fault-ridden, counter-productive first-innings-lead point system. That said, their batting was dreadfully inept, with a yougn middle-order batsman opening the innings. This team isn't even half as problem-ridden as Delhi, nor are they over-rated like the newly-promoted Saurashtra, but one player who will suffer is Joginder Sharma. After his team was relegated, and he only got one match, the selectors dropped him without hesitation. Given their aversion to picking Plate league players, he may never get another match, unless Haryana return to the Elite league (possible, once Sehwag turns up).

That Saurashtra actually won two matches and we saw so many draws shows that the much-touted Elite league hasn't had the best of cricket played. As mentioned in an article in The Sportstar, the less-talented (we may believe) Plate league has shown a lot more competition, and players play for a purpose, and for their teams, not their places in the teams. Services batsman Yashpal Singh scored heavily once more. He's scored well playing in all events, against even tougher teams before the Elite/Plate division in the tournament. But playing for a Plate side has weakened his chances of a national call-up, while some raw youngster from Mumbai barely 20 years old is already an India prospect.

This season has its fair share of heroes, some of them young, some of them who play roles which are vital in the national side. The Indian Test team's opening worries seem to have returned, and come to the ODI side as well. Robin Uthappa of Karnataka leads this season's runs tally with over a thousand. He's young, very effective on the field, and unusually, scores at a strike rate typical of hard-hitting all-rounders. More importantly, despite being a prospect for one-dayers, he's good enough to open in the longer version as well. While Ganguly may have got all the attention, his Bengal teammate Manoj Tiwari also scored heavily, over 900, and was also very sharp in the field. He's another prospect for the Indian ODI side after the World Cup, given the wide gap between India's best ODI batsmen or bowlers and their best fielders. Likewise Rohit Sharma of Mumbai, but he's still too young and raw for an India berth.

The strike seamer issue continues to dog the Indian team, and will keep on, as long as the Test seamers are frequently chopped and changed and little Agarkar is India's best ODI seamer. The season has thrown in a solution from an odd corner: Bengal. Ranadeb Bose, a giant swing bowler from Bengal, has been bowling long spells regularly, moved the ball off the pitch and through the air to good effect, even beating the bat more than a few times. His fielding may not be good enough for ODI's now, but may improve as he still has age and energy on his side. Lack of pace is evident in the speed-gun readings, but pace isn't everything, at least as long as the bowler at the other end is bowling fast enough. That bowler, however, is hard to find in India. And of course, there's Joginder Sharma, who's been among the top ten run-scorers and also a leading wicket-taker, and very effective on the field bar that one ODI he got, but nobody wants him in the side.

The Ranji Trophy has been a success overall, especially when it's produced a few stars and possible India players, but the Ranji OD series continues to get worse each season. We find matches played in club grounds, or in places with bad weather, in whites and with a red ball even as that's now a thing of the past, and most of the OD players are just plain mediocre and have no shot of even a Zonal team, let alone National. One can only hope all of that changes, and the Ranji heroes replicate their form here in the one-dayers as well.

[Jungle Jumbo]

Originally Posted by Arjun

The Ranji Trophy has been a success overall, especially when it's produced a few stars and possible India players, but the Ranji OD series continues to get worse each season. We find matches played in club grounds, or in places with bad weather, in whites and with a red ball even as that's now a thing of the past, and most of the OD players are just plain mediocre and have no shot of even a Zonal team, let alone National. One can only hope all of that changes, and the Ranji heroes replicate their form here in the one-dayers as well.

I had the impression that the Ranji One Day Tournament was going to be played in coloured kit and with a white ball this year.

[Arjun]

Originally Posted by Jungle Jumbo

I had the impression that the Ranji One Day Tournament was going to be played in coloured kit and with a white ball this year.

They were. The Mumbai/Baroda clash was a good match. Baroda were all out for 224, with Powar taking three wickets for 49 runs. He attacked the batsmen, flighting and looping the ball a great deal, unlike the two 'best' ODI spinners, who were only restricting the batsmen. Then, Mumbai lost two early wickets, including prospect Rohit Sharma. Powar came in at four, and smashed 57 rapid runs with five fours and a six. Powar, Jaffer (over 70) and Mazumdar went past 50 and they lost wickets too soon, but swing bolr Wilkin Mota scored the winning runs to take Mumbai home.

There was some action elsewhere, but no prospects in South. All matches in North and Central Zone were rained out.

[Arjun]

Mumbai win again, this time in a rain-reduced encounter against Gujarat, 25 overs a side. He took three wickets for 27 and scored a rapid 30. His fielding was impressive again. This was on the back of being left out of the World Cup team. Also, Rohit Sharma scored a rapid 90 in the same encounter to take the team to 195. Gujarat were never in the hunt for the chase, despite Parthiv Patel's 50.

[Arjun]

More matches were played down South, but nothing interesting happened in any of them, with no prospects in any team. With Laxman opting out of the Hyderabad side, the South Zone challenge has become a two-horse race, unless Andhra Pradesh can pull off a few upsets.

[Arjun]

The choice of venues for this Ranji OD series as well as the timing is good, showing that the scene has improved. We find matches played at venues such as Wankhede, Brabourne, Mohali, Barabati and other ODI venues. Matches are held D/N as well where it is available, and to add some colour to the colourless domestic scene, we have coloured clothing. And of course, white balls. That said, with Maharashtra reeling under a severe power shortage, the West Zone matches could have been played in Gujarat. EDIT: Comments on this?

Mumbai win again. They look the part of clinching the West Zone series and even the all-India ROD. Middle-order batsman Abhishek Nair took six wickets for 28 in an incisive spell to have Saurashtra out cheaply. Wasim Jaffer has been in good form in this series, with a century and a half-century, in ODI conditions, so he can't be all that bad in this form of the game, though way behind Uthappa. Powar's good form continued with bat and ball. Saurashtra, the minnows of this group, were no match for the Ranji champions.

Elsewhere, Baroda defeated Gujarat, with a score over 250 and Yusuf Pathan, the less-famous brother of Irfan Pathan, smashed 93 with 11 fours and two huge sixes. He then turned in ten overs of useful leg-spin to take two for 45 and the Baroda team won the match, as all the bowlers shared the wickets. This, even as the Indian team desperately needs a stock bowler who can also score runs in big hits in the final overs. It's a pity his form throughout the Ranji Trophy was woeful, as he fell out of contention for a national team spot, and he's now overtaken by the less-destructive Piyush Chawla, who's still too raw.

No prospects in the South Zone league, but Jagdeesh of Kerala starred in a match tied with Karnataka, and he's the third-highest run-scorer. Anyway, the top run-scorer so far is long-time Karnataka opener Barrington Rowland, averaging 152 at a strike rate over 90. Badrinath averages over 64 with a strike rate over 80. Interestingly, fifth on the list is Wasim Jaffer, with a 50 and a 100, averaging over 50 with a strike rate a little under 78.

Tenth in the list is Andhra's Sahabuddin, who's also the season's top wicket-taker so far! He averages 38 striking over 91, with a top-score of 71. He also has nine wickets in four matches at an average of 15. Powar is in the top wicket-takers list again, with seven in three matches, and also scores more than a few runs, averaging over 97, striking close to 120. The selectors have erred greatly by leaving him out of the World Cup squad.

[Pup Clarke]

I've always thought Rowland and Badrinath were good players as they were professionanals at my cricket club in Glasgow.Really happy for them and hope they get into the full Indian team.