Day 1 wraps
India hopefuls' performances
Abhimanyu Easwaran might have an outside chance of travelling to Australia as a reserve opener next month. He entered the Ranji Trophy on the back of three centuries, but fell for 5 against UP. The bowler who dismissed him was Yash Dayal, who was part of India's squad for the Tests against Bangladesh. Dayal brings the left-arm variety to a right-hand dominated pace-bowling India line-up, and will also hope to get on the plane to Australia. He bowled just ten overs on Day 1, and had figures of 1 for 20.
Prasidh Krishna, another hopeful for the tour with his extra pace and zip, bowled only eight overs against MP. He dismissed Himanshu Mantri in the second over of the day, and finished with 1 for 20.
If Tamil Nadu's Sai Kishore was ever into the national selectors' plans as one of India's next-in-line spinners, then he has done his reputation no harm. Three wickets against Saurashtra, including that of Cheteshwar Pujara for 16, helped bowl them out for 203 in Coimbatore. Tamil Nadu batted just two overs in their first innings, before play came to a close.
Baroda, Bihar fight back
Mumbai had Baroda at 90 for 5 at one stage. That is when wicketkeeper-batter Mitesh Patel and Atit Sheth joined hands, and added 130. They batted patiently, before Shams Mulani had Mitesh caught for 86 by Ajinkya Rahane. But Shehth finishes unbeaten on 60, as Baroda end the day with a much more solid score.
Bihar lasted all of 28.3 overs against Haryana. They folded for 78, as Aman Kumar got 3 for 18, while Sumit Kumar, Anshul Kamboj and Jayant Yadav bagged two wickets each. In reply, Bihar's bowlers hit back to have Haryana 146 for 7 at one stage. Jayant and Sumit then contributed with the bat to ensure no further losses.
Visit our Ranji Trophy fixtures page for other live scores and updates.
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Unadkat, Vasavada fight for Saurashtra
Tamil Nadu had Saurashtra at 88 for 5 at one stage. From there, Arpit Vasavada and Prerak Mankad added 43 to briefly stabilise their side. But left-arm spinner Sai Kishore struck to get Mankad for 20, with Saurashtra forced to rebuild again. Tamil Nadu then had Saurashtra had 149 for 7, after which Vasavada and Jaydev Unadkat resumed the fight. Vasavada went past fifty, with Unadkat firm at the other end.
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Tea: HP, Bengal soild
Opening batter Shubham Arora hit 118 in a stand of 206 with Prashant Chopra, with HP going to tea at a solid 229 for 1 against Uttarakhand in Dharamsala. Chopra, though, is on 91 at tea.
Bengal, meanwhile, have chugged along against UP. Sudip Chatterjee is unbeaten on 100, while Sudip Kumar Gharami is 86 not out on his comeback to Bengal.
Visit our Ranji Trophy fixtures page for other live scores and updates.
Chatterjee marks Bengal return with fifty
Along with former India wicketkeeper-batter Wriddhiman Saha, left-hand batter Sudip Chatterjee also returned to Bengal after having switched over to Tripura. Chatterjee had last played for Bengal in the group fixture against Baroda in Ranji Trophy 2021-22. He moved to Tripura in 2022-23, and played two seasons there, before returning to Bengal ahead of 2024-25.
Against UP in Lucknow, Chatterjee adds a century stand with his namesake Sudip Kumar Gharami after Abhimanyu Easwaran fell for 5 to leave Bengal at 14 for 1 after five overs.
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Lunch updates
Saurashtra will bank on their veteran workhorses Cheteshwar Pujara and Sheldon Jackson, after they were 51 for 3 against Tamil Nadu. They added 37 to briefly restore order, after Mohammed took two wickets for the hosts in Coimbatore.
Prasidh Krishna and Vijaykumar Vyshak strike once each in the morning, as Karnataka have MP at 81 for 3 in Indore.
India are about to tour Australia, a country offering plenty of pace and bounce for the quicks, and Prasidh will eye a comeback to the national team after a forgetful debut series in South Africa in 2023-24. He recently played in the Duleep Trophy as well as the Irani Cup, and his extra height and hit-the-deck style could yet end up attracting the India selectors.
Tanush Kotian takes two, as Mumbai reduce Baroda to 90 for 5 at the interval in Vadodara. So far, Shashwat Rawat is the hosts' top-scorer, with 25.
Visit our Ranji Trophy fixtures page for other live scores and updates.
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Bihar bowled out for 78; Vidarbha collapse
Haryana's Aman Kumar, Anshul Kamboj and Jayant Yadav led the way, as Bihar collapsed to 34 for 8 on the first morning at the Chaudhry Bansi Lal Cricket Stadium. They are eventually bowled out for 78, as Aman bags 3 for 18, while Kamboj and Jayant get two wickets each.
In their opening game last Ranji season, Bihar were bowled out for 100 twice, that too at home. And in case you missed it, Bihar finalised their Ranji Trophy squad for this season only after a late court intervention.
Vidarbha, meanwhile, are stuttering at 65 for 7 against Andhra, with two wickets each having gone to C Stephen, S Raju and KV Sasikanth.
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Dayal vs Easwaran
One of them is an up and coming speedster, who was recently called up to India's Test squad. The other is a veteran in domestic cricket, who has done the rounds for India A for ages and also been named in the senior side a few times without making the step up.
Today, in Lucknow, there took place Yash Dayal vs Abhimanyu Easwaran. UP's Dayal started the season with the confidence of the India call-up, having bowled to batters like Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma in the nets. Easwaran, meanwhile, entered the Ranji Trophy on the back of big scores like 157* and 116 in the Duleep Trophy, and 191 in the Irani Cup. But when on 5, Dayal had Easwaran caught by Aryan Juyal as Bengal lost an early wicket.
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Live scores and updates
Visit our Ranji Trophy fixtures page for live scores and updates, as the action gets underway across the entire country.
Defending champs Mumbai face Baroda
Here's some information from Vishal Dikshit on Mumbai's line-up today:
Mumbai’s top allrounder Shardul Thakur recently returned to the field for the Irani Cup after undergoing a foot surgery in June. He bowled just four overs against Rest of India in that game, and now with a packed domestic schedule coming up, he would want to prove his fitness before the Australia tour next month. Defending champions Mumbai are without Sarfaraz Khan for their opening round fixture against Baroda; he is at the NCA in the lead up to the Tests against New Zealand, so they have brought in the seasoned Siddhesh Lad, who returns home after a few seasons with Goa. In the bowling attack, Mumbai hand a first-class debut to 21-year-old offspinner Himanshu Singh. That means they are fielding just two quicks in Thakur and Mohit Avasthi, and three spinners in Shams Mulani, Tanush Kotian and Himanshu. Could it be a turner in Vadodara?
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Build-up to 2024-25
But coming back to the future, we have two performers who are thinking and aiming big: Madhya Pradesh's relentless bowling allrounder Saransh Jain, and Chhattisgarh's batter Shashank Singh. While Jain has been pegging away in his quest for the India blue, Shashank first made a name in the IPL - a T20 tournament which has, dare I say, perhaps impacted promising cricketers a thousand times more when it comes to the finances and the fame. But here's Shashank's story of how he stopped overthinking and being hard on himself.
And in a quick catch-up to this season, here's our ready reckoner for this two-phased Ranji Trophy, whose format or designing has undergone yet another change. Along with that, you can stay updated with our India Newsfile, which all the news, including player movements, coach appointments, and more, in the build-up to the domestic season in 2024-25.
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Which names will spring up this season?
Not everyone across the history of Indian domestic cricket, though, has been fortunate enough to have gone on and represented India in Tests. The most unlucky ones which immediately spring to mind are Haryana's left-arm spinner Rajinder Goel, who bagged 750 wickets at barely 18.58, including a mammoth 59 five-wicket hauls; Mumbai's run machine Amol Muzumdar, who finished with 11,167 runs at 48.13 and hit 30 centuries; and former Bengal captain Manoj Tiwary, who had his nearly moment in 2007, when a shoulder injury ruled him out of the ODIs on the tour of Bangladesh, only to sporadically get chances in limited-overs cricket much later, and never to have played a Test.
And who knows, by the time the latest season is done, a few players might end up that much closer to the India cap?
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Welcome!
The Ranji Trophy is an institution of Indian cricket. It is a place which has made careers and lives of thousands of aspiring international cricketers over the nine decades that it has been held for. But such has been the fierce, cut-throat competition that only some hundreds out of those many thousand have made the step up. Some have even gone on to be legends of the game - think of immovable batters like Sunil Gavaskar and Sachin Tendulkar, world-class allrounders like Kapil Dev, and pinpoint spinners like the famous quartet of Bishan Bedi, Bhagwath Chandrasekhar, Erapalli Prasanna and S Venkataraghavan, and the bespectacled Anil Kumble.
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