Praveen cuts short Delhi rampage

The neutral venue gave the impetus in the Ranji Trophy final this year...

The neutral venue gave the impetus in the Ranji Trophy final this year — a five-day match with three centuries, one eight-wicket haul, two four-wicket hauls, all inside of three days. Then you await an exciting finish too.

The final at the Wankhede provides this riveting atmosphere as Delhi and Uttar Pradesh battle it out. When stumps were drawn for the day, the contest remained locked in the most intriguing manner with Uttar Pradesh tottering at 154-6 in their second innings, having earned the all-important first innings lead.

In the morning it was easy to believe Delhi would go past UP’s first innings 342. Centuries by overnight batsmen Aakash Chopra (102) and Rajat Bhatia (139 n.o.) had raised that hope. But Praveen Kumar, the 21-year-old India player from Meerut, thought otherwise.

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Two days of cricket notwithstanding, the wicket offered considerable bounce, and conditions helped swing as Kumar’s exceptional spell earned him an eight-wicket haul, reducing the opposition from 196-4 to 290 all out.

Instead of gaining a lead, Delhi ended up conceding one, by 52 runs. Kumar’s 8-68 from 32.1 overs happened to be the fifth best spell ever in an innings of a Ranji final. He was impressive the other day too, but the Delhi middle-order stemmed the rot. But with the new ball he scotched Delhi hopes. Soon his century Chopra was trapped leg-before, and while Bhatia kept the other end ticking, the rest perished.

Wicket-keeper-batsman Puneet Bisht, Pradeep Sangwan and Amit Bhandari were also adjudged leg-before while Sumit Narwal was bowled – all Kumar.

“Yes, the new ball did the trick,” he said, adding, “Yesterday the batsmen weren’t playing anything that was wide off the wicket. And when it was pitched in the middle, they just kept it down. It becomes difficult that way.”

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On Friday morning, Delhi had certainly decided to free their arms. Chopra quickly added a couple of boundaries and Bhatia eight more to keep the runs ticking. It was Kumar’s pace – he regularly clocked in the region of 130-133 kmph – and the fact that he was able to bring the ball into the right-hander that did the batsmen in. His partner with the new ball Sudeep Tyagi added just another scalp to the one he had managed on Day Two. UP are batting again, already 202 runs ahead at the end of the third day. With two more days to go and four wickets left, another 100 runs would make for an interesting target. Kumar, however, is quick to remind that “the wicket is still good for batting.”

Delhi can be rest assured that they’ll be chasing close to 250 or more when they bat again.

Scoreboard

Uttar Pradesh (1st innings): 342

Delhi (1st innings) (overnight 196-4):

A Chopra lbw Praveen Kumar 102, R Bhatia not out139, P Bisht lbw Praveen Kumar 0, S Narwal b Praveen Kumar 5, C Nanda c Raina b Tyagi 0, P Sangwan lbw Praveen Kumar 9, A Bhandari lbw Praveen Kumar 0; Extras (lb-7, nb-4, w-2)13; Total (all out, in 98.1 overs) 290. Fall of wickets: 1-1, 2-15, 3-15, 4-36, 5-232, 6-232, 7-244, 8-247, 9-270. Bowling: Praveen 32.1-8-68-8, Tyagi 24-5-63-2, Bhuvanesh 15-5-54-0, Chawla 13-2-57-0, Gupta 10-2-29-0, Shukla 2-0-7-0, Rohit Srivastava 2-0-5-0.

Uttar Pradesh (2nd innings): R P Srivastava c Bisht b Bhatia 18, T Srivastava run out1, S Raina c Bisht b Sangwan 85, Md Kaif c Bisht b Sangwan 21, R Shukla c Jain b Bhandari 0, P Chawla c Dhawan b Narwal 4, B Kumar batting 19, A Khan batting 4; Extras (nb-2) 2; Total (for 6 wkts, in 53 overs)154. Fall of wickets: 1-1, 2-63, 3-123, 4-126, 5-130, 6-130. Bowling: Sangwan 15-3-41-2, Narwal 12-4-48-1, Bhandari 11-2-28-1, Bhatia 8-3-14-1, Nanda 7-1-23-0.