Orissa trounce MP by seven wickets, gatecrash into Ranji semis
An Orissa team sans Shiv Sunder Das and Debashis Mohanty reached their first ever Ranji Trophy semifinal with a seven wicket triumph over hosts Madhya Pradesh at the Captain Roop Singh Stadium in Gwalior on Monday
Staff Reporter
26-Mar-2001
An Orissa team sans Shiv Sunder Das and Debashis Mohanty reached their
first ever Ranji Trophy semifinal with a seven wicket triumph over hosts
Madhya Pradesh at the Captain Roop Singh Stadium in Gwalior on Monday.
Chasing a target of 192 in a minimum of 75 overs, Orissa lost three quick
wickets but an unbroken century stand between Rashmi Ranjan Parida and
Pravanjan Mullick helped them cruise to victory with more than ten overs to
spare. In a semifinal encounter from April 5-9, Orissa will challenge four
time Ranji Trophy champions Baroda for a place in the Ranji Trophy final.
Madhya Pradesh began their second innings on the fifth morning at 153/6,
leading by 111 with four wickets in hand. The unbroken seventh wicket
partnership between wicket keeper Ankit Sriwastava and skipper Chandrakant
Pandit swelled to 64 before the former gave seam bowler Mullick his third
wicket. Pandit stuck around for a little longer, top scoring with precisely
50 (58 balls, 6 fours), before being stumped by G Gopal off leg spinner
Jagannath Das.
Trailing by 42 on the first innings, Madhya Pradesh's only hope lay in
forcing an outright victory. Pandit closed shutters on 233/9 at the fall of
Rajesh Chauhan to give his four man spin attack an opportunity to bowl out
Orissa on a fifth day wicket. MP made their intentions clear, opening the
bowling with off spinner Chauhan and leg spinner Narendra Hirwani.
Orissa openers PK Das and Suresh Kumar adopted an ultra-cautious approach
which failed to yield dividends as both fell in successive overs to Chauhan
and Hirwani respectively, leaving the score at 26/2 in the 20th over. Soon
Orissa slumped to 52/3 as skipper Sanjay Raul fell to Hirwani and at that
moment their thoughts must have focused on saving the match rather than
taking up the gauntlet and winning outright.
But Parida and Mullick, with contrasting half centuries, fashioned a
remarkable 140 run stand in 33.1 overs which turned the course of the
match. Parida followed up his first innings 162 with a tenacious 64 (150
balls, 9 fours). Mullick on the other hand made a positively exuberant 74
in just 86 balls, slamming seven boundaries and two sixes. Pandit rang in
the bowling changes using off spinner Abbas Ali and leg spinner Yogesh
Golwalkar as well as belatedly bringing on his new ball bowlers Harvinder
Sodhi and Devender Bundela. But all his manipulation was to no avail as
Orissa coasted home.