Ranji Trophy 2016-17: Mumbai, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh lead the tables in their respective groups

The Ranji Trophy 2016-17 got underway from October 06. This season the matches are being played at neutral venues, thus depriving teams of home advantage, a move which is thought to help improve the standard of cricket by making players play on unknown pitches to help them adapt quickly when the situation demands.

Debutants Chhattisgarh started their season on a strong note, winning their debut match under veteran skipper Mohammad Kaif. Chhattisgarh was the first team to win their debut match in 48 years after 1968-69 when Punjab won their debut match.

They started their campaign against Tripura, comfortably winning the tie by 9 wickets. Ashutosh Singh was adjudged the Man of the Match for scoring 140 runs in the first innings. Ajay Mandal finished the match with 7 wickets for Chhattisgarh, wrecking the Tripura batting at Ranchi. In their second match against Andhra Pradesh, they finished with 3 points due to their superior score in the first innings, where Amandeep Khare was adjudged to be the Man of the Match for his 143 run innings for Chhattisgarh.

Mumbai

Elsewhere, the big names also started their campaign strongly. Mumbai also started the tournament with a win over Tamil Nadu in a low-scoring match at Rohtak. Mumbai scraped through to a 2-wicket win in a match where the bowlers dominated the proceedings, with Dhawal Kulkarni bagging his first 10-wicket haul in a match, finishing with figures of 10 for 78 bettering his previous best of 9 for 56.

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They drew their second match against Baroda, getting 3 points on the back of their first innings lead of 18 runs batting second. Akhil Herwadkar was awarded the Man of the Match for his first innings score of 106, which played a crucial role in Mumbai managing to surpass Baroda’s first innings score of 305.

Delhi

Delhi also started their campaign strongly, winning their opening match against Assam by an innings and 83 runs at Baroda. They scored 589 in their first innings batting second, thanks to centuries by Rishabh Pant, Nitish Rana, and Pradeep Sangwan coming in at No. 10.

Rishabh Pant kept up the good work in the second match too, scoring 308 against Maharashtra, but could not help his team past the 635/2 posted by Maharashtra courtesy of a record-breaking 594-run partnership between Ankeet Bawane and Swapnil Gugale, in which Gugale scored 351* and Bawane went on to score 258*, helping Maharashtra get 3 points from the match.

Punjab

Punjab started with a draw managing only 1 point from their first match but went on to win in their second match by 126 runs against Madhya Pradesh, where Yuvraj Singh produced a commendable performance with the bat scoring 177 in the first innings and 76 in the second, to win the MoM award for the match.

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Others

Elsewhere Haryana started with a draw vs Services and went on to win their second game against Hyderabad by 8 wickets. Jammu & Kashmir also won their second match with Goa by 116 runs after playing out a draw in the first. Rajasthan is at the top of Elite ‘B’ after winning their second match vs Assam by an innings and 8 runs after a weak start vs Saurashtra where they could somehow avoid defeat, managing a single point after they witnessed a batting failure in the first innings and the second innings also did not look any better.

In the second match, they came back strong with their bowling unit clicking. Pankaj Singh ended with a 9-wicket haul in the match, grabbing a 5-wicket haul in the first innings, and Aniket Chaudhury did the same in the second to end Assam’s innings on 195 and 69 respectively.

Himachal Pradesh, Tripura, Hyderabad also managed a win each in Elite ‘C’ group. In Elite ‘B’, Odisha and Jharkhand won a match each, with Odisha winning their second match vs Saurashtra by 32 runs and Hyderabad winning vs Goa by 9 wickets.

In Elite ‘A’, Mumbai lead the points table after the second round with 9 points, followed by Punjab and Madhya Pradesh with 7 points and Tamil Nadu with 6. MP won by an innings and 64 runs vs Uttar Pradesh in the opening match and lost their next match to Punjab. Tamil Nadu started with a loss at the hands of Mumbai in their first match and came back to win their second match vs Railways by 174 runs. Gujarat and Bengal have managed 3 points each from the one match they have played.

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Early signs in the Ranji Trophy 2016-17 indicate an interesting season ahead, with bowlers and batsmen sharing equal limelight in the matches thus far.