Two Mumbai bowlers banned for chucking in Ranji Trophy
Mumbai will have to play without Vishal Dabholkar in their last Group B match against Gujarat that starts from Tuesday at Wankhede Stadium. Dabholkar along with spinner Ankush Jaiswal were reported by umpires for bending their elbows beyond the permissible limit of 15-degree.
Mumbai team’s coach Chandrakant Pandit said, “It happened in the last match against MP. It was noticed in a couple of balls. They were reported to the (Mumbai) team manager. They (Dabholkar and Jaiswal) have already attended the Chennai facility (of BCCI for checking suspect bowling actions), just to check it again with the same action. We are awaiting the report.”
The two players will have to rectify their bowling action and get a clean chit from the Cricket Board. Till then, they are not allowed to play. The 28-year-old Dabholkar with 27 wickets from six matches has been the most successful bowler for his team this season. Interestingly, Jaiswal made his Ranji debut in the match against Madhya Pradesh.
Mumbai have already got their quarter-final ticket and with 32 points, are on the top of group points table. For the Gujarat match Mumbai have brought in under 23 bowler Dhrumil Matkar. However in all probabilities, experienced lower order batsman Iqbal Abdullah will keep that place. Their coach said all they want is to keep winning. “We would like to keep the winning momentum going which is important. We want to finish the league well,” said Pandit.
In order to confirm their quarter-final berth, Gujarat need to take a first innings lead in the match against Mumbai. According to their captain, this team with 23 points is looking forward to play good cricket. Parthiv Patel said, “We are well placed, but we are not looking at points. We are focused on playing good cricket and things will fall into place. Winning outright games is very important and that's why we have decided to play on good wickets at home and we have done well.”
Talking about the pitch Gujarat’s wicketkeeper said it has green tinge. “There's a bit of green tinge, there's also more grass than yesterday. It will be interesting to see how it looks tomorrow,” Patel added.