Kar v Punjab Ranji QF D2
Mohan
university of Mysore. Half the ground is surrounded by trees and the
other half has about 8-10 rows of stands with the total seating
capacity of about 3000. As the holiday crowd expecting to see the home
side bat trickled in slowly, the stands filled to capacity about an
hour into day's play.
Punjab new ball bowlers Ablish and Harmeet began well with the former
beating Uthappa about half a dozen times in the first two overs and
latter seeing Pawan being dropped in the slips. Pawan didn't make much
use of the chance, getting trapped plumb in front off the same bowler.
Satish started off confidently hitting a couple of lovely straight
drives, but fell to Ablish chasing a wide one outside off. Dravid
never got going with both timing and placement off. Uthappa opened up
post-lunch taking a heavy toll off the legspinner in particular, but
fell caught and bowled by the same bowler. Dravid fell to ablish
trying to cut a short ball outside off and dragging it onto stumps.
Amit verma and Gautham followed soon after chasing wide ones, and at
215 for 6, home side was in serious trouble.
Only consolation for the crowd was that stylish Manish Pandey was
batting confidently at the other end and he didn't disappoint. When
the leggie came back for another spell, he unleashed an array of
strokes, even sending one over the straight boundary. In the company
of veteran Joshi he took Karnataka to relative safety when bad light
stopped play with 8 overs remaining.
There wasn't much in the pitch for pace bowlers, but all 3 punjab
bowlers stuck their task, bowling a tidy line and length with Gony
being the pick.
A result seems likely at this stage. Karnataka will have to bat better
in the second innings to avoid a final day collapse.
Mohan
shankar.data
Very nice report. I am really glad to hear that there was capacity
crowd, albeit 3000.
There used to be a time when I was a kid, a Rohinton Baria game
between Osmania University and University of Nagpur game that drew
that many people in Warangal. I still remember Shivlal Yadav defending
a modest 160 odd. Mohd Shahid, playing for Osmania got off to a flier
but U. of Nagpur reigned Osmania in by restricting them to to 160
something. Mohd. Shahid, who later played for Hyderabad in the Ranjis,
was briefly an India prospect after he played a young Malcom Marshall
with some success. Overnight U. Of Nagpur were 100 for a three or
four. That evening I remember overhearing Shivlal Yadav discussing
strategy with their coach. He was cocky given the state of the match.
What do you know, next morning he sliced through the innings, getting
them below 145.
Mohan, do they have radio commentary for Ranji games these days?
Before the advent of TV, Ranji games used to have radio commentary in
english and the regional languages.
This Manish Pandey looks to have the appetite and the aptitude.
-sn
Mohan
>
> Mohan, do they have radio commentary for Ranji games these days?
I don't think so. AIR still provides commentary for odis and Tests,
but haven't heard for ranjis.
> This Manish Pandey looks to have the appetite and the aptitude.
He does. He is pencil thin and doesn't have much power, all sheer
timing and elegance. Just completed his 100 with three exquisite
boundaries off Ablish. Punjab took the new ball as soon as it was due.
Joshi was runout to a direct hit from kohli. Since then it has been
all Pandey who has taken Kar to 302 for 7.
Mohan
> -sn
tendulkar.com
Are you blogging from the venue?
Mohan
> On Dec 25,
> Are you blogging from the venue?
Yes. Pandey just got out for 115 lbw to one that kept low fropm Kohli.
318/8.
Mohan
tendulkar.com
Did Dravid get out to an unplayable ball?
Can Karnataka chase anything > 120 in the 4th?
Cricinfo says Sreeram Veera is in Mysore too providing bulletins.
Mohan
tendulkar.com wrote:
>
> Did Dravid get out to an unplayable ball?
Far from it.
> Can Karnataka chase anything > 120 in the 4th?
120 should be doable, but anything over 180 could be tricky. There are
no demons in the pitch, but if knock-out pressure gets to them, you
never know. Luckily, Vinay played a plucky knock extending the lead to
78. Punjab's chances are slim now. They have to score around 250 in
the next two sessions, add another 50 or so tomorrow and leave
themselves around 80 overs to bowl Kar out. They have started
aggressively, but won't be easy.
> Cricinfo says Sreeram Veera is in Mysore too providing bulletins.
Yeah, met him.
Mohan
Don speaks the truth
> tendulkar.com wrote:
> > On Dec 25,
> > Are you blogging from the venue?
>
> Yes.
is it wi-fi from the laptop coz Mysore is mostly wi-fi(ed)?
enjoying company year-end holidays seeing a ranji match? :)
Don
Mohan
> On Dec 26, 10:02 am, Mohan <dpuse...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > tendulkar.com wrote:
> > > On Dec 25,
> > > Are you blogging from the venue?
> >
> > Yes.
>
> is it wi-fi from the laptop coz Mysore is mostly wi-fi(ed)?
Nope, blackberry.
> enjoying company year-end holidays seeing a ranji match? :)
Yes. Just relaxing with friends and family in the best place on
earth :-)
Mohan
Cricketwallah
Youre in Bombay?? You didnt say!
Really hard to understand the way Punjab played yesterday. Yes,
they conceded a bit more of a lead than they would have liked -
but 78 is hardly over the top. They had almost 60 overs (basically
2 full sessions) left yesterday itself - the minimum runs they should
have aimed for would have been IMHO 220 or so. Even if youre
like 220/5, youre 140-odd clear, you can hope to get 230-odd
ahead last morning and declare. Even if you give Karnataka a
chaseable score, big deal - after all, a draw is as good as a loss
in the knockout stage for them after conceding the first innings lead.
Instead, they just crawled along - they lost only 1 wicket, but to
score less than 3/over is hard to believe. Seems like just brainless
cricket, really.
Elsewhere Bombay are in pretty good shape now - basically had
our bacon saved by another tremendous innings against from Rahane.
From 17/2 and 55/4 on the first day (and 4-down in a team that
is short a batsman with Nayar hurt, and is thus playing Agarkar
as the specialist #6).. for Rahane to get 143 was one heck of
an innings from that situation, basically putting Bombay in control
by the time he left. Yesterday the spinners got 6 wickets between
them and Bombay are 300+ ahead going into the last day now.
This was already Rahane's 10th fc century in his 33rd fc game
at age 21 (Mohd Kaif, for example, has 12 fc tons in 117 games!),
and this despite a 98 in the last game itself. This season in the
Ranjis Rahane now has 660 runs at and average of 94. I guess
all he can really do is score runs, the rest is up to the selectors.
UP had a fight with Assam but has pretty much got thru now -
Assam restricted them to only 213 on first innings, but Assam's
best bat this year, Dhiraj Jadhav, got hurt in the field and couldnt
bat, which hurt them badly. Amol played his best innings of the
year and got the top-score of 53 before being runout, but Assam's
chances probably vanished whem they got 149 allout on first
innings. (They had a chance while bowling, getting UP to 137/6,
but Chawla etc have taken them to safety now).
Meanwhile Delhi is still fighting its uphill battle vs TN, and still
surviving (barely) - TN got 460, Delhi are 270/4 (despite no
contributions from Chopra and Dhawan, probably the 2 who
were most needed to get contributions from). Great effort by
Delhi, but theyre short of batting from here on out - only keeper
Bisht left really, probably not sufficient, but theyve made it a
fight which is creditable.
Sadiq [ Bombay now misses Rohit for the semis too ] Yusuf
> Mohan
Don speaks the truth
lol..went to mysore once and was asking for directions to a
hotel...this was around the big ground that u have in the middle...the
scooterist kept saying take a left, another left on seeing a sign,
take another left and so on..basically almost circle round that big
space in the middle to arrive at my destination...it was comic.
Don
Mohan
>
> Really hard to understand the way Punjab played yesterday. Yes,
> they conceded a bit more of a lead than they would have liked -
> but 78 is hardly over the top. They had almost 60 overs (basically
> 2 full sessions) left yesterday itself - the minimum runs they should
> have aimed for would have been IMHO 220 or so. Even if youre
> like 220/5, youre 140-odd clear, you can hope to get 230-odd
> ahead last morning and declare. Even if you give Karnataka a
> chaseable score, big deal - after all, a draw is as good as a loss
> in the knockout stage for them after conceding the first innings lead.
Yes, that's what I thought they would do. Try and score around 300 an
hour into 4th day and bowl Kar out. Even if they end up losing wickets
in the process, no big deal. But now they will have to bat till
lunch.
> Instead, they just crawled along - they lost only 1 wicket, but to
> score less than 3/over is hard to believe. Seems like just brainless
> cricket, really.
Or maybe they have come to know of some new bcci rule that in KO
matches first innings lead doesn't matter and in case of a draw it
will be based on last year's standing or coin toss or some such
thing.
> Sadiq [ Bombay now misses Rohit for the semis too ] Yusuf
But won't they get Tendulkar? Not as good as Rohit, but still...
Mohan
tendulkar.com
> Cricketwallah wrote:
>
> > Really hard to understand the way Punjab played yesterday. Yes,
> > they conceded a bit more of a lead than they would have liked -
> > but 78 is hardly over the top. They had almost 60 overs (basically
> > 2 full sessions) left yesterday itself - the minimum runs they should
> > have aimed for would have been IMHO 220 or so. Even if youre
> > like 220/5, youre 140-odd clear, you can hope to get 230-odd
> > ahead last morning and declare. Even if you give Karnataka a
> > chaseable score, big deal - after all, a draw is as good as a loss
> > in the knockout stage for them after conceding the first innings lead.
>
> Yes, that's what I thought they would do. Try and score around 300 an
> hour into 4th day and bowl Kar out. Even if they end up losing wickets
> in the process, no big deal. But now they will have to bat till
> lunch.
I don't understand your (and Sadiq's & Sreeram's) point. Punjab's
approach makes perfect sense to me. Now with wickets in hand, they can
score 150 in about 30 overs and set Kar a target of 240 in 60 overs.
Any other approach is riskier.Trying to score runs without securing
would also open them up to a second innings collapse reducing their
chances of victory (compared to the current option that they have due
to plenty of wickets in hand).
Cricketwallah
Mohan wrote:
> Cricketwallah wrote:
> >
>
> Yes, that's what I thought they would do. Try and score around 300 an
> hour into 4th day and bowl Kar out. Even if they end up losing wickets
> in the process, no big deal. But now they will have to bat till
> lunch.
>
Truly pathetic performance from Punjab here. I was thinking
300 too.. but even if you dont get 300, its ok. You can, worst
comes to worst, set 200 or 220 to win - just make sure to
have 60-odd overs to bowl at least. After all, it makes
*zero* difference if you lose or draw, once youve missed
taking the first innings lead. And for a team like Punjab
they ought to be aiming for the semis.
In the end, they didnt just bat till lunch, they batted till a half
hour before tea! They didnt even make an attempt! Their
coach Bhupinder said afterwards that one of their bowlers
was injured and couldnt bowl (Gony.. so what, with 70 overs
you can just bowl your other 3-plus-parttimer fairly easily
without them getting too tired)... so they decided to settle
for batting practice! Batting practice! For what? Their
season is over! (Bombay did something similar - just
batted on, didnt bowl - but Bombay is already in the
semis with first-innings lead, they wanted batting practice,
and they wanted to give bowlers rest... their season
isnt over! For Punjab to do that was nuts).
I wasnt too thrilled with Assam either - they should have
batted faster and tried harder to get their 4th innings
total. But at least they had a much harder task (340
in an hour or so less than 1 day, with 10 batsmen..
they eventually got 80 overs, but that was because
UP was bowling quickly with spinners pushing for a win,
they would have gotten fewer overs if they were trying
for a win).. and at least Assam lost wickets and ended
up effectively 9 down at the end, only saving the loss
due to Amol's unbeaten century (it was 8-down, but
Dhiraj Jadhav didnt bat either innings due to injury - hurt
Assam's chances v badly this game, he was their best
batsman all year). They have a little bit more of an
excuse than Punjab does.
>
> > Instead, they just crawled along - they lost only 1 wicket, but to
> > score less than 3/over is hard to believe. Seems like just brainless
> > cricket, really.
>
> Or maybe they have come to know of some new bcci rule that in KO
> matches first innings lead doesn't matter and in case of a draw it
> will be based on last year's standing or coin toss or some such
> thing.
>
Naah, the problem is that BCCI never makes new rules, it
always has only old rules.. thus the first-innings-lead is an
old rule, just as the "2 teams from last years finals get a
bye as the top two seeds" is an old rule. A silly rules, but
an old rule (they used to use it in Superleagues in Ranjis,
and even before that in Wills Trophye tc). Just as their
"game is played alternately in locations" is an old rule...
very stupid, that is too (thus you can end up winning
the regular season, but your home-or-away playoff game
depends *entirely* on where you last played your putative
opponent... even if that last occasion you played them
was in 1937, it will still be an "alternate hosting" situation).
>
> > Sadiq [ Bombay now misses Rohit for the semis too ] Yusuf
>
> But won't they get Tendulkar? Not as good as Rohit, but still...
>
Tendulkar dropped out of the ODIs for "rest", so I doubt he'll
play the Ranjis in the meantime. Not that he'd be an adequate
replacement for Rohit anyway - Tendulkar's last innings for
Bombay was a zero, he doesnt bowl anymore (like Rohit
still does), and he isnt as good a fielder as Rohit nowadays
either. We'll probably pick Praful Waghela over him.
Sadiq [ Zaheer's getting hit in ODIs, why dont they drop him? ] Yusuf
> Mohan
Cricketwallah
Cricketwallah wrote:
> as the specialist #6).. for Rahane to get 143 was one heck of
> an innings from that situation, basically putting Bombay in control
> by the time he left. Yesterday the spinners got 6 wickets between
> them and Bombay are 300+ ahead going into the last day now.
>
> This was already Rahane's 10th fc century in his 33rd fc game
> at age 21 (Mohd Kaif, for example, has 12 fc tons in 117 games!),
> and this despite a 98 in the last game itself. This season in the
> Ranjis Rahane now has 660 runs at and average of 94. I guess
> all he can really do is score runs, the rest is up to the selectors.
>
After his very good century in the first innings, Rahane got a
pretty useless one yesterday - Bombay batted on, rested
bowlers, got some batting practice, and Rahane came in
and put up 101* by the end of the match. Still, its an fc
century (and nobody else actually got one in this match
anyway).
With this innings Rahane is currently the #1 rungetter in the
Ranjis this season, he now has 761 runs at 108.71 in
the Ranjis this year (he went past Parthiv, who was the
leader with 727 runs at 66.09 until yesterday. Pandey
is currently 3rd, with 668 runs at 66.8, but he'll have a few
more opportunities to add to his tally too).
Dont know what the Ranji semis draw is yet - does
anybody? Karnataka will be full-strength as usual, and
UP should be stronger (though not full-strength), with
the presumed big addition of Praveen Kumar, usually
their most important player (still missing Raina though).
Delhi will be adding Ishant Sharma too (though not
Nehra presumably? And Delhi of course is still
missing Sehwag/Gambhir/Kohli).
Sadiq [ Prashant Naik for Rohit, for Bombay, IMHO ] Yusuf
Uday Rajan
>
> Truly pathetic performance from Punjab here.
A rather uninspiring set of quarter-final matches all around. Punjab
having no clue about what they were doing in the second innings
against Karnataka, Bombay choosing to bat out the second innings
against UP rather than attempt an outright win, Assam batting too
slowly against UP, and of course the TN-Delhi match being an old-
fashioned finish-the-first-innings-with-an-hour-to-go-in-the-match
runfest. I think in the Ranji knockouts, rather than use the first-
innings lead as a tie-breaker, they should randomize if the match ends
in a draw. Have a random-generator spin off a number drawn from a
uniform distribution over [0,1]. If it's under 0.6321, the side with
the first-innings lead wins. If it's equal to or over 0.6321, the
other side wins. That'll at least offer an incentive for sides that
are well ahead to try and force a win.
Nirvanam
I think it should be 0.6017 instead. Nice one though!
But seriously in a game where victory is not always possible (and you
want the draw to remain) what other ways can we use to eliminate the
first-innings lead stuff? How about First Innings Index = Avg * RR?
the team having the higher number goes thru. And in case the team
batting first plays for more than 7 sessions then we must include a
parameter that proportionately reduces their Index based on the 'extra
time' consumed. This is to ensure that both teams have equal number of
opportunities over a 5 day period (if only 1 innings can be played) on
Bombay-Pune Expressways.
tendulkar.com
Good Idea. A six faced dice will do the job & keep it simple (for the
general public).
I'm just flabbergasted at Punjab's approach. It is too stupid to even
accuse of match-fixing
tendulkar.com
> Dont know what the Ranji semis draw is yet - does
> anybody?
Cricinfo just updated the fixture
Mumbai vs Delhi ( A full strength mumbai vs delhi is still a mouth-
watering contest)
Kar vs UP (If it were TN instead of UP, the SF's would have been a
perfect match-up between legendary rivals)
Mohan
Someone at the stadium was saying that the semis will be played in
Mysore too and I was a bit worried. The only two real draws we have
played so far this season have been in Mysore (we would have won the
Delhi match but for bad light robbing most of final day's play, so it
doesn't count). The pitch just flattens out after two days. No way you
can get a result on that pitch. Today's paper says the semis will be
in Bangalore, which is a good thing. Prepare a green top and kill
them. Yes, I know, they have RP and Praveen, but we have the batting
to handle them.
Mohan
Cricketwallah
But will also offer the weaker side the incentive to just play for
a draw from the very first ball... in fact, to even prepare dull
flat pitches where they can be sure to draw (ie Assam vs a
far superior UP side, for instance). Currently this wasnt the
case - they lost time in that match due to weather to start
the game IIRC, and still Assam battled pretty hard.. it was
UP whose tail held up Assam and left them needing 340 in
about 5 hours (instead it could easily have been 280 in
8 hours, without the battling tail - and then we would probably
have had an outright result).
The simple solution... make the game a 5-day game. Ta-da!
How simple is that? It even used to be a 5-day game in the
knockouts until a year ago (used to be only semis until 2
years ago, of course, now there is a quarters too). But they
stupidly changed all games to 4-day games now.
If these had been 5-day games, IMHO we would have had 3
outright results in 4 games for sure (even without making the
pitches more helpful to bowlers - which wouldnt be a bad thing
either, of course). Bombay would have at least given Haryana
the last day to bat and bowled them out IMHO. Punjab and
Karnataka could have turned into a very good contest. Assam
and UP was already a very good contest - would have been
even better, probably. (Delhi/TN.. ok, that one you dont really
know.. but even there, after TN got 460 midway thru the 2nd
day, Delhi basically decided to make it into a 1-innings
contest, figuring being safe and slow would be easier than
having to have a 4th innings chase of any kind... they not
only chased the 470, but took 170 overs to do so, batting
very slowly and safely along the way. If both sides had known
it was a 5-day game to start with.. who knows how it would
have changed things in general?)
Anyway. The semifinals are 4-day affairs too! It stinks. Hopefully
the pitches are much more helpful to bowlers, otherwise we're
going to be stuck with more first-innings games (and in a
one-off innings, with 5 batsmen against Ishant, I have a few
fears - Id much prefer a 2-innings game).
Sadiq [ recall Netravalkar from Australia ] Yusuf
Cricketwallah
> On Dec 28, 1:36 am, "tendulkar.com" <tendulkar....@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > Dont know what the Ranji semis draw is yet - does
> > > anybody?
>
> > Cricinfo just updated the fixture
>
> > Mumbai vs Delhi ( A full strength mumbai vs delhi is still a mouth-
> > watering contest)
If this was a final it would have been fun - then both teams might
have had a chance to be full-strength, maybe? Now *that* would
have been a real fun contest... produce a good cricketing wicket,
and go old-style-rivalry, with Sehwag, Gambhir, Chopra, Dhawan,
Kohli and Manhas up against Zaheer, Agarkar, Kulkarni, Powar,
Abdullah... and with Ishant, Nehra, Sangwan, Awana, Nanda
against Kukreja, Jaffer, Rahane, Tendulkar, Rohit Sharma.
Could have been a fantastically entertaining contest.
Instead, of course, all the stars are away - even Tendulkar
is resting and Rohit is away (ie even fewer stars for Bombay
than in the quarters last week). Wasted opportunity.
> > Kar vs UP (If it were TN instead of UP, the SF's would have been a
> > perfect match-up between legendary rivals)
>
> Someone at the stadium was saying that the semis will be played in
> Mysore too and I was a bit worried. The only two real draws we have
> played so far this season have been in Mysore (we would have won the
> Delhi match but for bad light robbing most of final day's play, so it
> doesn't count). The pitch just flattens out after two days. No way you
> can get a result on that pitch. Today's paper says the semis will be
> in Bangalore, which is a good thing. Prepare a green top and kill
> them. Yes, I know, they have RP and Praveen, but we have the batting
> to handle them.
>
You may or may not have the batting to handle them ("handle" =
getting a huge score, I mean) on a green-top.. but I think UP
definitely does *not* have the batting to handle your bowling on
a green-top, so this strategy would favour you guys a fair bit.
UP's batting is really quite weak - Tanmay hasnt done anywhere
near as much as hoped, coming off the U19s (and still he is one
of their "Big Three" batsmen, despite an ordinary record). Kaif
is their main guy - and Kaif's domestic record is pretty damn
ordinary, and has always been. And Raina when he's around is
their other bat - and Raina too has a quite ordinary fc record,
really. On a flattish track UP can hang in and do ok (and they
try and compensate for the lack of real quality in the top-order
with good depth in their lower order - Chawla is pretty good
for #7 etc), and their bowling can be decent. But on a
real green-top, I would expect UP's batting to struggle
mightily against Karnataka's bowling (especially as even
Raina will be missing). Someone like Vinay will do very
well on a greentop against this sort of lineup (even though
I dont think Vinay is an international guy).. and from what
Ive heard Mithun is pretty pacy and could do serious damage
too (now Mithun I think could be an international guy down
the road, from what I hear).
Sadiq [ Karnataka first XI playing, nobody missing, right? ] Yusuf
> Mohan
Mohan
<snip>
> If this was a final it would have been fun - then both teams might
> have had a chance to be full-strength, maybe?
How? Stupid international cricket in Bangladesh would have come in the
way of finals too.
> You may or may not have the batting to handle them ("handle" =
> getting a huge score, I mean) on a green-top.. but I think UP
> definitely does *not* have the batting to handle your bowling on
> a green-top, so this strategy would favour you guys a fair bit.
True. That's why I suggested preparing a green top. Heck, looking at
the Mumbai batting line-up, same strategy should work for finals too,
assuming we host the finals :-)
> real green-top, I would expect UP's batting to struggle
> mightily against Karnataka's bowling (especially as even
> Raina will be missing). Someone like Vinay will do very
> well on a greentop against this sort of lineup (even though
> I dont think Vinay is an international guy)..
Well, if Praveen Kumar can play, why not Vinay? Highest wicket-taker
for the season so far.
> and from what
> Ive heard Mithun is pretty pacy and could do serious damage
> too (now Mithun I think could be an international guy down
> the road, from what I hear).
He is tall and has got good pace and bounce. Let's see. Aravind isn't
bad either. Decent pace, moves the ball around. Sort of like RP.
> Sadiq [ Karnataka first XI playing, nobody missing, right? ] Yusuf
Hopefully.
Mohan
dodo
>
> - Show quoted text -
Let the odds be decided by the size of the first innings lead.
Odds for team x = (Team x Score)/(Team 1 Score +Team 2 Score)
This way events on the field decide the probability