Following Ashes or
Ranji or both ??
Good news is India
has a new Ranji champion – Vidarbha – score card reads : Vidarbha 547 (Wadkar
133, Sarwate 79, Jaffer 78, Saini 5-135) and 32 for 1 (Jaffer 17*) beat Delhi
295 (Shorey 145, Himmat 66, Gurbani 6-59(including a hattrick)) and 280 (Rana
64, Shorey 62, Wakhare 4-95, Sarwate 3-30) by nine wickets. The team is naturally elated. Captain Faiz Fazal believes Vidarbha's first
match of the season, which they won against Punjab by an innings and 117 runs,
"set the tone" for their victorious Ranji Trophy campaign. Vidarbha
lifted the prestigious domestic trophy for the first time in their 61st
attempt by beating Delhi comprehensively
in Indore on the first day of 2018. Overall, Vidarbha registered an impressive
seven wins in nine matches and only drew against Chhattisgarh and Himachal
Pradesh.
Down under
there was some respite for England at Melbourne but not from the barrage of
media. Australian television broadcast
footage showed James Anderson digging
his thumb nail into the ball during Australia's second innings. Former
Australia leg-spinner Shane Warne said Anderson's actions "might get
people talking". However England
coach Trevor Bayliss was to dismiss that quickly stating that he talked to the
Umpires who found no problem. Umpires
Kumar Dharmasena of Srilanka and Indian S Ravi spoke with England captain Joe Root,
but they were satisfied that nothing improper had taken place and the ball was
not changed.
Amidst
the Ashes, Australian coach Darren Lehmann says he will not seek a contract
renewal when his current deal expires at the end of 2019. Lehmann outlined his
plans to Fox Sports News 500 in a special Boxing Day Test one-on-one interview,
declaring a jam-packed English summer in 18 months will be his last hurrah. England
appear set to hand a Test debut to novice leg-spinner Mason Crane in Sydney. Coach
Trevor Bayliss has given the strongest hint yet that the 20-year-old will win
his maiden cap in the Ashes finale, with England able to 'look at some
different people' as they try to break their duck in a series lost in Perth
before Christmas. In case you are
wondering how a Coach could change the fortunes of any team, read on !! Ricky Ponting has responded to reports that
he is in line to coach the national side at the next World T20 tournament,
saying he'd loved to be involved in the game again but that nothing has been
decided with Cricket Australia.
Melbourne
is the state capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria. The metropolis is located on the large
natural bay of Port Phillip and expands into the hinterlands towards the
Dandenongand Macedon mountain ranges, Mornington Peninsula and Yarra Valley. Founded
by free settlers from the British Crown colony of Van Diemen's Land in 1835, in
what was then the colony of New South Wales, it was incorporated as a Crown
settlement in 1837.
More than
the city, we are aware of MCG, the ground where Boxing Test is played. The
marquee match of Australia’s home summer schedule – the annual day Boxing Day
Test in Melbourne – could be stripped from the MCG if there are repeats of this
year’s sub-standard pitch that has been formally rated as ‘poor’ by the
International Cricket Council. In the wake of the drawn fourth Magellan Ashes
Test that attracted criticism from both competing teams, commentators and
administrators, the ICC acted upon a report from their Chief Referee Ranjan
Madugalle (who officiated at the match) to deliver the verdict which is
unprecedented for an international venue in Australia.
Had
the Test finished two days later, the nation’s most famous cricket ground would
have been slapped with three demerit points as part of a new ‘name and shame’
system from the ICC that came into effect on Monday. The real penalty for the MCG, and for CA by
extension, is in reputational damage. The
Boxing Day Test is seen by many in the game as the pinnacle event on the
cricket calendar, certainly in Australia, and more than 260,000 spectators
watched last week's match between Australia and England.
Can never
forget that Tied Test – India Vs Australia at Chepauk – Sep 18-22, 1986.
Soon
after arriving in Nagpur and signing the contract to take over from Paras
Mhambrey as Vidarbha's head coach at the start of the season, Chandrakant
Pandit, who played that Tied test as a batsman, reportedly asked the state association's vice-president
Prashant Vaidya: "What happens to the prize money?" Vaidya thought he
hadn't heard Pandit right and asked: "Kaunsa prize money [what prize
money]?" Pandit was clear in his head and told Vaidya he was referring to
the prize money the Ranji Trophy champions are entitled to. His planning of
winning the Ranji Trophy had begun even before he had met the players.
After
passage of months, Vidarbha has done what they could not do in 61 seasons, win their
maiden Ranji Trophy title. They appeared in
Ranji Trophy for the first time in 1957-58, and played 260 matches before
coming into this season. Only two teams have taken longer to win their first
title - Gujarat (83 seasons) and Uttar Pradesh (72). Vidarbha are the 18th team
to become Ranji Trophy champions. The present
decade has seen Rajasthan, Gujarat and Vidarbha getting their maiden
title. Last decade, Railways and Uttar
Pradesh crowned glory. The hat-trick
bowler Rajneesh Gurbani took 27 - Wickets in the knockout stage this season (at
an average of 14.11), which is 12 more than any other bowler. All other
Vidarbha bowlers together picked up 32 wickets in this period at 30.96.
The man
who coached Vidarbha, Chandrakant Pandit spent the last two seasons coaching
Mumbai, the 41-time champions. He was replaced by Sameer Dighe for the want of
"fresh faces and fresh outlook" after the side finished runners-up
last season. For the opponent, the
losing finalists, Delhi, the coach was Bhaskar Pillai who was once to play for
India against New Zealand at Jammu, the match was abandoned and he never got to
play another game. KP Bhaskar was a
prolific run-scorer for a strong Delhi side during the 80s but was never
selected for India, despite remaining on the periphery for years. He was a
standby for India's tour of Sri Lanka in 1985
With regards
– S. Sampathkumar
2nd
Jan 2018.