UP-Maharashtra Ranji match likely to be played in Lucknow
LUCKNOW: Former champions Uttar Pradesh is likely to play their Group A Ranji Trophy match against Maharashtra at the Ekana International cricket stadium here as the Board of Control for Cricket in India has refused UPCA permission to hold the match at Dehradun.
An official confirmation about the venue is likely to be made on Wednesday as UPCA has already begun preparations to hold the match at Lucknow. The match, which is to start next Tuesday, was originally scheduled at Dehradun and UPCA had informed the BCCI about this well in advance.
“Yes, the BCCI has denied us permission to host the match outside the state, so we are weighing our options to conduct the match at Lucknow. Hopefully we will announce the final venue by Wednesday,” UPCA’s secretary Yudhveer Singh told HT on Tuesday.
He, however, claimed that in terms of state cricket board UPCA and Uttarakhand are one unit and the board trophy matches have been taking place in Dehradun for the last many years without any interruption.
“I don’t think it has anything to do with the dispute between different factions of the cricket body in Uttarakhand as the match was being organized by the UPCA,” added Singh.
“We have been intimated about the match (possible) only on Monday. We have very limited time to get the pitch ready for the match. Let’s see what happens over the next few days,” Ekana Sports City’s director Udai Sinha told HT on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, Suresh Raina-led side opened their account in the points tally on Tuesday after their four-day match against hosts Hyderabad at the Gymkhana Ground in Hyderabad was abandoned. The two teams were given a point each.
UP, which lost their opening tie against Railways here early this month, were desperate to collect some vital points in the match against Hyderabad, but a torrential rain kept haunting the two sides and not even a single ball could be bowled on all fours days.
UP IN CONTROL
Fine bowling by Shanu Saini and Trishal Vijay Trivedi helped former champions Uttar Pradesh take a thrilling 17-run first innings lead against hosts Chhattisgarh in their Plate Group B Under-23 Col CK Nayudu Trophy in Bhilai on Tuesday. Shanu took four for 39, whereas Trishal had three for 27 as Chhattisgarh while chasing UP’s first innings total of 243 got out for 226 in 73.5 overs on the penultimate day of the four-day encounter, at the BSP Cricket Stadium. Barring Sahban Khan (61, 139b, 7x4, 1x6), RR Choubey (56, 103b, 9x4) and Sanjeet Desai (36, 63b, 5x4), all other batsmen kept dancing to the tunes of Shanu and Trishal.
A 69-run second wicket partnership between Choubey and Sandeep remained the biggest so far for Chhattisgarh as they kept losing wickets on regular ends from both the ends. Harshvardhan and Boby Yadav shared two wickets between them.
UP were 63/1 in 31 overs in their second innings, thus taking their overall lead to 80 runs. Opener Madhav Kaushik (35, 92b, 4x4) and Himanshu Asnora (28, 88b, 4x4) were at the crease when stumps were drawn on Tuesday. Opener Hardeep Singh (0) was trapped leg before wicket by AJ Mandal.