Eliminated Delhi rue poor season
nNEWDELHI: On the last day of their Ranji Trophy season, during which they let go of many opportunities and failed to qualify for the knockouts, Delhi players gave up victory hopes a bit too early against Rajasthan at the Ferozeshah Kotla ground.
Their ouster at the quarter-finals stage was confirmed on Friday but ending with the high of a win should have been motivation enough besides claiming bragging rights over Punjab, who finished sixth in the Elite A and B table. Delhi ended eighth, behind eliminated holders Vidarbha.
Rajasthan, following on, reached 345/6, a mere 21 runs ahead, when handshakes happened, well over half an hour before tea. “There was nothing in the wicket. The bowlers were getting tired. Over-bowling Simarjeet Singh could have injured him,” Delhi coach KP Bhaskar said, justifying the teams’ decision to end the game.
Skipper Dhruv Shorey said Delhi had asked for a track that helped spinners push for an outright win, but the pitch supervised by a neutral curator proved a flat one. Pacer Simarjeet, with 31 wickets, was the only bright spot in Delhi’s campaign, in a season marred by the sacking of its selection panel and Cricket Administrative Committee, which didn’t allow a settled line-up to play. Delhi lacked quality bowlers as India players, Ishant Sharma and Navdeep Saini, could feature in just three games because of national duty.
Shorey through the last two days, and even in the previous game against Gujarat, struggled to create chances through spinners. Leggie Tejas Baroka couldn’t contain the runs against Gujarat, who they dominated and looked like taking an important three-point lead. Against Rajasthan, off-spinner Shivam Sharma and left-arm spinner Shivang Vashisht gave away plenty, forcing Shorey to post a defensive field. “We lacked preparation. We would have liked to go into the season well prepared,” said Shorey, who too failed to score a ton.
Former India cricketer Atul Wassan had pointed out a lack of preparation once he took over as chief selector before the season. But before he could get going, he was sacked. Bhaskar said it was tough to boost a side that has had no preparatory camp or match practice through pre-season tournaments like other states.
“Also, we didn’t have luck. We had full points guaranteed against Punjab but rain played spoilsport. Then the game against Bengal couldn’t end. We were 50-50 from 3 points. Against Gujarat, a decision against us probably cost us three points,” he said. Quarter-finals (Feb 20-24): Gujarat v Goa; Bengal v Odisha; Karnataka v Jammu & Kashmir; Saurashtra v Andhra Brief Scores — Elite A & B
At Delhi: Delhi 623 vs Rajasthan 299 and 345/6 dec (M Lomror 118, RR Singh 58, S Sharma 3/117). Draw. Points: Delhi 3, Rajasthan 1. At Rajkot: TN 424 vs Saurashtra 481/9 dec (A Vasavada 132, Chirag Jani 124*; K Vignesh 3-78) Draw. Points: Saurashtra 3, TN 1. At Mumbai: Mumbai 427 and 238/5 d vs MP 258 and 314/6. Draw. Points: Mumbai 3, MP 1. At Lucknow: HP 220 and 433/7dec vs UP 119 and 148. HP won by 386 runs. Points: HP 6, UP 0. At Hyderabad: Hyderabad 272 & 244 (A Sarwate 7/121) vs Vidarbha 333 & 116/3 (G Satish 47*). Draw. Points: Vidarbha 3, Hyderabad 1. At Nadiad: Andhra 177 and 258 (A Patel 7/92) vs Gujarat 406 and 31/2. Gujarat won. Points: Gujarat 6, Andhra 0.
Other pool games involving quarter-finalists: At Jammu: J&K
340 and 174 (S Raina 38, P Rasool 29; J Yadav 7/58) lost to Haryana 291 and 227 for 8 (R Sharma 75*; P Rasool 5/72). Haryana won. Points: Haryana: 6, J&K: 0. At Cuttack: Odisha 436 and 187/ 1 dec (S Senapati 100*) drew with Jharkhand 356 (K Suraj 107, V Singh 83). Match drawn. Points: Odisha: 3, Jharkhand: 1.