da blaze casino： A relentless juggernaut rolled on in the North Zone league this seasoncrushing all mercilessly beneath its wheels
Sankhya Krishnan27-Jan-2001A relentless juggernaut rolled on in the North Zone league this seasoncrushing all mercilessly beneath its wheels. Punjab won fivesuccessive games, the first four by an innings and the fifth by 199runs to establish their supremacy in unambiguous terms. Second placedDelhi was 11 points behind while Jammu & Kashmir did Robert Bruceproud by finally qualifying for the knockout stage after 41 years oftrying.Punjab’s batsmen were in punishing mood, piling up scores of 526/7,587, 486 and 430 in their first four games. Dinesh Mongia struck atriple century against J&K; he didn’t touch 50 in five other inningsbut still averaged over 73. Last season Pankaj Dharmani had taken atriple off J&K’s obliging bowlers, this year they merely allowed him176. Skipper Vikram Rathour rattled up 203 in the opener againstHimachal Pradesh while Reetinder Sodhi, Ravneet Ricky and ManishSharma also made tons in the course of the season.The batsmen only failed in the final game against Delhi at thecapital’s Harbax Singh Stadium. It was admittedly in difficult battingconditions, there being just one fifty in the entire match – Sodhi’s78. Punjab made 187 & 196 in the two innings but Delhi was hard put tomatch even that, barely raising three figures (104) on the board intheir first knock. Set 280 in the fourth innings, Delhi were blownaway for 80. This was the game for which Yuvraj Singh had beenreleased from the national team after the first Test against Zimbabwe,avowedly to get match practice ahead of the ODI series. In the eventhe made only 8 & 20 in his only Ranji foray this season.Medium pacer Gagandeep Singh took nine wickets to go with another ninewicket haul against Haryana, and closed with 22 wickets at a stunning10.27. But it was off spinner Harbhajan Singh who emerged as thelynchpin of the attack, snaffling 28 wickets at 13.96. He also battedwith freedom, clobbering two fifties including an 84 against Haryana.Sharandeep Singh played only one match before graduating to higherthings but his replacement, the 19-year-old leg spinner Sandeep Sanwalwas good enough to collect 15 victims at 14 runs apiece.The outstanding bowler was undoubtedly Delhi’s Ashish Nehra with 36wickets in five games. Until their disastrous head to head withPunjab, Delhi had ridden piggyback on Nehra’s strike power to takehome three wins and a narrow first innings lead over Haryana. OpenerAkash Chopra played the batting lead, aggregating 545 runs, includingan effort of 222 against Himachal Pradesh, to take No.1 position inthe zone. Former skipper Ajay Sharma who had been left out of theDelhi squad over the match-fixing rumours, signed up with HimachalPradesh instead. The CBI report broke just as he was batting in thefirst round of matches, he retired and was not chosen again. The lifeban ensures that Amarjeet Kaypee is now safely ensconced as the alltime highest rungetter in the Ranji Trophy.Ajay Jadeja was another who was caught in the maelstrom of the matchfixing scandal. Having moved to J&K as skipper, he made 120 in hisfirst, and also his last, match to oversee a nine wicket defeat of hisformer team Haryana. Medium pacer Abdul Qayoom, 33, took over thereins and snatched 24 wickets in a campaign that saw two morevictories, but two defeats as well, against their two fellowqualifiers. The 24 points that accrued was enough to keep theirclosest pursuers Haryana 11 points adrift in fourth place.Haryana are presently going through a rebuilding phase but it shouldnot be long before they are back in business. Youngsters Ajay Ratra,Ishan Ganda and Amit Mishra are likely to form the nucleus of a strongteam in the future. But it was 27-year-old skipper Parender Sharma whoprovided the thrust to Haryana’s challenge, making two centuriesincluding a double against Himachal Pradesh. The bottom teams Himachaland Services however have little to look forward to. Himachal’s onlystar, Rajiv Nayyar was a trifle less prolific this season, graftingtogether 323 runs with one century. For Services, the major gain wasthe emergence of 26-year-old seamer Sudhakar Ghag, who recorded thebest innings haul of 8/122, against Haryana, en route to a place inthe Duleep Trophy squad.