Cycle 2 of the Ranji Prize 2022-23 season –
which started off on Tuesday – has a few exceptionally captivating storylines and subplots to follow with the arrival of Suryakumar Yadav to top notch cricket for Mumbai and legspinner Yuzvendra Chahal’s accessibility for Haryana against Baroda being discussed the most.
While Yadav didn’t dishearten, Chahal had an intense excursion. Yashaswi Jaiswal, a young Turk, maintained his excellent form, and experienced hands Dhruv Shorey and Siddarth Kaul made their performances stand out.
The headline-grabbing events from Day 1 are as follows
Tough Outing for Yuzvendra Chahal Getting game time is, without a doubt, the best drill for keeping a player in the groove, and it’s even better when it’s red-ball format. That’s exactly what Chahal did when he showed up for Haryana’s match against Baroda in Vadodara, his first FC game in nearly four years.
However, the tweaker’s performance was not particularly stellar, as he gave up 90 runs in 16 overs. On Day 1, the Baroda batters completely dominated Haryana, scoring 370/2, with team openers Jyotsnil Singh and Pratyush Kumar scoring individual tons. Kumar remained unbeaten at 186 on the first day, even though Singh was eventually run out for 110.
Before the first stumps were called on Day 1, skipper Vishnu Solanki also made a significant contribution by chipping in with an unbeaten 60.
Suryakumar Yadav Overwhelms
To say Suryakumar Yadav has been as his life would be putting it mildly and the buzz around the No.1 hitter in the ICC T20I rankings turning up for Mumbai in whites was justifiable. And after Yadav established his authority in the white-ball format, SKY was back in action, eyeing the Indian Test jersey!
If you look at Yadav’s wagon wheel, you can see that he made good use of the off side, scoring 59% of his runs there, but he also made sure to score boundaries on the on side.
Mumbai lost Prithvi Shaw early in the innings after being put into bat by Hyderabad, but Jaiswal and Yadav put together a brisk stand of 153 runs for the second wicket. In the end, Kumar missed a hundred getting out for 90 runs off 80 deliveries, which included 15 fours and a maximum.
Dhruv Shorey Saves Delhi Delhi was reduced to 77/4 by Assam and put on the back foot, but opener Shorey saved the day on Friday by helping the team get back on track.
As Delhi lost wickets frequently, Shorey ran out of partners and kept his team afloat. On the first day in Guwahati, he was unbeaten at 139 and took Delhi to 271/7 at Stumps.
Punjab Have Rail lines Staggering
The Rail lines bowling unit shook the Punjab batting line up on the main day at the Karnail Singh Arena, Delhi and packaged them out for 162 with Adarsh Singh getting back with a fifer. However, their joy was short-lived as the hosts were bowled out for 77/7 by Punjab bowlers in a superb performance with the ball.
Siddharth Kaul had a couple of wickets to his name, while Baltej Singh took four. Rail routes are following Punjab by 85 runs.