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Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Ranji Semi Finals are on today

With the drubbing downunder, not much of Cricket is being followed and the Semi Finals of the domestic event – the Ranji Trophy may not attract great crowds. Today at Rohatak, Haryana play Rajasthan, while Tamilnadu take on the host Mumbai in 4 day matches.  The finals will be a 5 day affair between the two winning teams. 

The history of the Cup is rather one sided with Mumbai having won 39 teams and the other teams which have a chance now, only once each.  Tamilnadu appears stronger with 5 test cricketers L Balaji, S Badrinath, Dinesh Karthik, Murali Vijay and Abhinav Mukund in their ranks.  For Mumbai, Wasim Jaffer recently became the top run scorer in its history who can pull it off with some talented bunch of youngsters. 

Apart from their solitary win, Tamilnadu had reached the finals 5 times – lost thrice to Mumbai and once each to Delhi & Karnataka.  In recent times, , in 2002-02 and 2003-04, they faced the hurdle of Mumbai in the finals.

The best of bowlers has been TP Sudhindra for Madhya Pradesh – awesome 40 wickets in 7 Matches / 14 innings and more impressive Ashok Dinda with 37 wickets from 6 matches / 10 innings.  The top 5 batsmen have been : R Bist of Rajasthan  841 from 12 innings; Abhinav Mukund 825 in 11; Stuart Binny of Karnataka 742 in 11 innings; Suryakumar A Yadav, Mumbai 669 in 9 innings and Naman Ojha 668 in 11 innings. 

So will TN with its batting depth and experience put it through Mumbai remains to be seen.  There is Yuzvendra Chahal who was heard in IPL.  Rajasthan has a good team and would depend on the ever reliable solid Akash Chopra who has blossomed to be a very fine writer and Meyrick Pringle, their new coach

With regards – S. Sampathkumar.

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