India playing an away series is awful …. Dhoni has lost so many –
in 2012, Adelaide Test was captained by Virendar Sehwag who lost by 298 runs …
now it is Virat Kohli leading …. – and today, Michael Clarke battled through severe
back pain to make his 28th Test hundred, Steven Smith scored his fifth and the
pair punished India's inconsistent bowlers on a second day badly hit by rain.
The pair racked up 163 for the sixth wicket through three long interruptions in
play, hitting 21 fours in the 30 overs they batted together. Poor light ended
play four deliveries after Clarke fell for 128. Now Australia are 7 for 517 (Smith 162*, Warner 145, Clarke 128)
– and the joke going around is that Aussies are hitting enough to make India
play the entire Series.
Indian bowling was abject misery. Both Indian opening bowlers conceded 5 runs
an over or more . 5.91 is Varun Aaron's
economy rate, the highest for any Indian who has bowled at least 20 overs in an
innings. He bowled 23 overs for 136 runs. The previous worst was by Kapil Dev,
220 runs off 38.4 overs against Pakistan in 1983, but he did take seven
wickets. Mohammad Shami conceded 120 runs off his 24 overs.
Back home, Tamilnadu was humiliated in Rajni as Aravind’s hat-trick routed Tamil Nadu for 82. The score in brief : Karnataka 290 (Gautam 94, Kapoor 87, Kaushik
4-53) and 351 for 5 dec (Agarwal 80, Binny 77*, Uthappa 76, Pandey 56*) beat
Tamil Nadu 274 (Abhinav 84, Prasanna 59, Aravind 4-52) and 82 (Aravind 4-9,
Vinay 3-20) by 285 runs
At Chinnaswamy stadium, the first two days could not separate
the teams. Later Karnataka scored well and on final day TN batsmen fell in
heap. Left-arm quick S Aravind, who
played this game only because Abhimanyu Mithun was unavailable, hastened defeat
with a hat-trick. Tamil Nadu were bowled out for 82, their lowest score in the
Ranji Trophy since the 1972-73 final against an all-powerful Bombay side. Tamil
Nadu coach WV Raman is quoted as saying : "In a four-day game, it is not
enough to be ahead in first two days, hope the boys have learnt that from this
game."
At Wankhede, history was created as Mumbai lost to Jammu. The scorecard reads : Jammu & Kashmir 254
(Khajuria 107) and 237 for 6 (Khajuria 78, Hardeep 41*) beat Mumbai 236 and 254
(Suryakumar 115, Dayal 5-75) by four wickets.
Mumbai had only lost five Ranji
matches at the Wankhede in the last 15 years, all of them to major teams. Parvez Rasool is quoted as saying - "We
lost a month of practice because of floods. The guys prepared themselves
mentally after that and made do with practice wherever possible. The guys from
Jammu played in Jammu. The guys from Srinagar also moved elsewhere. It's good
that even after such adversity, we were able to perform well. We also had a
15-day camp in Nagpur and that helped us all. Our coach's hardwork and experience
had an impact on the boys too."
The maiden century from
Shubham Khajuria, an India Under-19, ensured they had the lead - a lead in
Mumbai. So no Mumbai now…. Elsewhere Punjab beat Haryana and Delhi beat
Saurashtra ….
A release from PCB said that Pakistan's Mohammad Hafeez will be
sent to Chennai to undergo remedial work and unofficial tests on his bowling
action. – all these on a day whence seeking permission to contest in the BCCI
election, N. Srinivasan has given an undertaking in Supreme Court to keep out
of IPL matters if elected as BCCI president till he gets clean chit from high
power panel.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday questioned the “rationale” behind
N. Srinivasan stepping aside as BCCI president but attending its meetings as Tamil
Nadu Cricket Association president. It
passed an order after senior advocate
Kapil Sibal, appearing for Srinivasan, said that since the hearing was not
likely to complete before December 17, the election for office bearers has to
be postponed, a point with which it agreed. The BCCI counsel said the Board
will have to issue notice of three weeks for holding the election. Till now the
AGM has been postponed thrice from September 26 to November 20 and then to
December 17 and now till Janaury 31, 2015.
With regards – S. Sampathkumar
10th Dec 2014
Society Magazine
