NEW DELHI: The
Ranji Trophy
got under way on Thursday but the matches played in northern India had to bear the brunt of the harsh winter. Teams were robbed of a significant number of overs on Day One.
The four matches played in Delhi, Lahli, Jammu and Chandigarh saw only 118 overs of play out of a possible 360 overs, the reason being poor visibility due to fog and haze.
In Delhi, Delhi batted just 19 overs to be at 40/4 against Puducherry after the game started two hours late. In Chandigarh, a total of 54.3 overs were bowled with Chandigarh being bowled out for 96 against Railways who finished the day at 73/0.
In Jammu, hosts Jammu were shot out for 100 overs before Himachal Pradesh went to stumps at 47/0 after a total of 44.3 overs were bowled in the day. In Lahli, the match between Haryana and Rajasthan didn’t see a single ball being bowled. All four host teams must feel robbed of making use of home advantage at
the beginning of the season. The lack of game time due to poor scheduling is a worry. It is well documented that the first week of January is likely to see dense fog and poor weather conditions in this part of the world.
The Indian cricket board’s (BCCI) operations team has inexplicably scheduled Ranji Trophy matches here at a time when India’s premier first-class tournament is struggling for relevance.
The Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA) is contemplating putting in a request to reschedule their next home match, which starts on January 26.
The match can’t be played at the Arun Jaitley Stadium due the Republic Day parade. These factors are elementary while planning a fixture. All the four host teams would not mind starting their season with an away game instead of letting go of an opportunity to maximise their home advantage.
Dhull fails as Delhi struggle
All eyes were on captain Yash Dhull as Delhi started their Ranji campaign with a young team against an inexperienced team like Puducherry.
However, the U-19 World Cup-winning captain’s struggles against seam bowling came to the fore again when was cleaned up by
Gaurav Yadav
for just two runs while opening the batting. Dhull’s captaincy was the talk of the town in the build up to the tournament.
His poor form has seen him go out of India ‘A’ contention and that prompted the Delhi team management to make him open the innings since he didn’t warrant a place in the middle order.
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