Ranji Trophy 12-13: Jharkhand vs Tripura

Match Summary: Tripura (106 & 86) lost to Jharkhand (139 & 553/3) by 7 wickets.

Points: Jharkhand 6, Tripura 0

After taking a break in the 5th round of games, Jharkhand were back in action in the 6th round, playing against Tripura in Agartala. And what an action packed return it was with the match finishing inside 2 days. Either the pitch must have been something extra-ordinary or the bowling out-of-this-world or the batsmen totally incompetent. Given the records of the players concerned, I would like to believe in the extra-ordinary pitch theory. The contest was unfair with the dice being heavily loaded in favour of the bowlers, but I would rather have this kind of pitch than some of the flat tracks being dished out in the Ranji trophy.

Coming back to the match. There was a total of 1 big partnership in the game between Saurabh Tiwary & Ishank Jaggi and that basically sealed the fate of the game in Jharkhand’s favour. How valuable was the parthership? It was 7 runs more than the entire Tripura 2nd innings and was more than double the combined total of the other nine Jharkhand 1st innings partnerships. Ajay Yadav, playing only his 2nd First class match, was the star performer with the ball, taking 10 wickets in the match while Shankar Rao took a 5-for in the 2nd innings. The two highest wicket takers for Jharkhand this season, Nadeem and Sunny, bowled a total of 8 overs in the entire game, such was the impact of the 2 new ball bowlers. But the star performance was undoubtedly the Tiwary-Jaggi partnership which helped secure the 6 points.

With this win, Jharkhand take their points total to 17 with 3 games in hand. They are very much in the race for the Quarter-final spot right now. Hoping to see my team in the Ranji knock-outs.

Next Game – vs Andhra, starting December 15.

Season Stats

Top scorer – Saurabh Tiwary – 336 runs @ 48

Most wickets – Shahbaz Nadeem – 26 @ 20.42

P.S. It was interesting to see that former India keeper Ajay Ratra is now playing for Tripura