Ranji Round 2

[Amol Cricketwallah]

End of first day. With most of the real suspense gone, since tour spots
to Australia are basically booked up apparently, with 20 already being
announced. (Still dont see the point of that. Why not wait till the 18th
for the final 16, without announcing a 20? That way you get 2 full Ranji
games to help decide, at least. Anyway).


Bombay vs Delhi:
The old-firm clash, biggest rivalry of the 70s and 80s and still what
most of us Bombay-fans consider our biggest rivals, IMHO. And for some
reason they decide to play this big game at a brand new ground, the
Jamia Millia Ground! On apparently a totally crappy pitch, where
the top of the pitch was coming off right from the start, apparently.

Delhi won a great toss and batted, obviously. Bombay went with debutant
Munaf Patel and Robin Morris to open - they didnt take any pacemen
other than Munaf, basically (Morris plays as an allrounder, and might
play as a batsman alone sometimes). Morris bowled 5 overs all day
long. The spinner (Nilesh Kulkarni) was on after only 6 overs of the
day had been bowled - and he got Australia-bound Akash Chopra in his
first over itself, caught behind off one that spun and turned for 6.
Meanwhile Gambhir took charge and Oberoi grafted - Oberoi made only
9 runs of a 72-run partnership as Gambhir waded into the Bombay
attack (reaching 50 in 46 balls, with 7 fours and a six), before Munaf
claimed his first wicket in Bombay colours, clean bowling Oberoi (may
there be many more :-) At lunch Delhi were sitting pretty at 109/2 with
Gambir 81* and Manhas 12*.

After lunch it was all spin. Manhas caught behind off Bahutule for 12,
then Gambhir caught at short-fine-leg off Bahutule for 96 (made in
3 hours, quite terrific). Jadeja caught behind off Kulkarni for 12,
Bhatia stumped off Bahutule for 27, Dahiya caught behind off Kulkarni
for 11. Sharandeep to Kulkarni, then Sanghvi and Nehra to Bahutule.
Eventually Delhi 199 allout in 70 overs. No real way to judge Munaf
Patel on a pitch like this, but 12-1-38-1 overall for him. The spinners
doing all the damage - Kulkarni 30-6-62-4 and Bahutule 21-3-45-5.
A very good effort by both, particularly Sairaj - he was 3rd spinner
for the tests against NZ and in the squad, but didnt play, and then
got called up for an ODI game where he bowled 3 poor overs, and has
slid right off the selectorial radar again. A fine effort yesterday
as captain however, 5/45 when Delhi might have run away with it.

Bombay is 15/0 at the end of the day - with Delhi opening their bowling
with Nehra and Sharandeep Singh! On this sort of crappy pitch 200
might well turn out to be a very decent score indeed - the reports
claim it basically looked a non-prepared track on Day One, so Gambir's
knock might still turn out to be critical. Once again, I have no idea
why they'd play such a big game on a brand-new and apparently very
crappy pitch like this one.


Rajasthan vs TN at Jaipur:
Another strange-looking pitch - though at least the KL Saini ground is
not making its debut IIRC :-)

This time TN won the toss and put Rajasthan in - and they collapsed
to 97 allout. 19-3-26-3 for Balaji - but he didnt actually do most
of the early damage, bar the huge early wicket of Khoda. Rajasthan
were 41/1 before the slide, and once again left-arm spinner Ramkumar
was the major factor in it, claiming the middle-order himself (#3,
#4 and #6, with #5 being runout). Balaji returned to claim #7 and
#8, and Ramkumar wrapped it up, and finished with 17-2-41-4. For
the second consecutive match a terrific performance - after the best
performance in his career in the previous win over Karnataka (a 10-fer
match, including the first 5-fer of his career).

TN responded shakily - losing Suresh off the very first ball of the
innings. Ramesh fell soon for 5 as well (he now has 8, 18 and 5 so
far this season). A recovery with Sriram and Badrinath, before they
fell for 24 and 41 respectively, and then Madanagopal fell for 10.
Sharath still holding firm with 21* at the end of the day, and Ganesh
Kumar with him. TN end the first day already in the lead, at 113/5,
and looking to put Rajasthan away on the 2nd day itself.

BTW, P Raju is keeping for TN - Dinesh Kaarthik, the bright young U19
keeping prospect, is yet again missing a Ranji game because of a
U19 engagement.

Also, BTW (this is for Samarth, mostly) - any more details on Ramkumar?
He's a left-arm spinner and only 23, and had really not done anything
in his career before (only about 7 games for not-too-many wickets,
IIRC). And then he suddenly burst onto the scene with 10-fer against
Karnataka in the last match, including a 6/42, his first 5-fer. And
yesterday he backed it up with another 4/41 on a first-day pitch. Do
we have a real prospect here?

Kerala vs Railways:
Railways batted first, and ended a pretty disappointing day at 243/8 at
Palakkad. This is the same place where Punjab put Kerala to the sword,
so Railways must surely have hoped for a better score. Most of their
batsmen got going, and then gave it away.

An 80 run opening partnership between Pagnis and Bangar, and then
Railways progressed only 138/1 and in good shape. But Pagnis got 42,
Bangar 45, TP Singh 40 - and none of them went on. And then the
middle order fell away to Ananthapadmanabhan. Railways slid to 177/7,
but eventually recovered to 243/8 due to Shreyas Khanolkar's 43* at
the end of the day. Veteran Apban turning in yet another fine
performance - 17 overs, 4/34 by day's end.

BTW, the slide of recent-India-prospect Tinu Yohannan continues. He
ended yesterday at 17-2-46-0 - with 12 no balls and 1 wide in 17
overs! This follows up 29 overs, 0/105 with 16 no balls and 3 wides -
so Yohannan has yet to claim a wicket this Ranji season, with over
150 runs conceded.


UP vs Punjab:
UP ended the day 233/3, with opener R Prakash batting thru the day
for 134* and Jyoti Yadav getting 72. UP were 192/0 at one stage, so
they will be a little disappointed at giving it away a little bit
at day's end. Mike's Pandey hasnt had a bat yet - and Nikhil Chopra
is back in the UP side (so maybe he was only injured for the last
match). For some reason neither Vineet Sharma nor Amit Uniyal (the
fast bowlers for Punjab) are playing this game.

Assam vs Gujarat:
A disappointig first day for Assam, 180 allout. Gujarat stuttered in
response however, 32/2 to end the day. Only Subrajit Saikia with 56
and former TN player Vasant Sarvanan with 58 got any runs for Assam
(and former Bombay player Manoj Joglekar isnt in the side, so maybe
he moved away again). Majumder had 5/47.

Gautam Dutta struck early for Assam getting both wickets at the end
of the day (7 overs, 2/5). But veteran Mukund Parmar is back to lead
Gujarat, so their middle-order ougth to prove stiffer than in the
match against Hyderabad in the first round.


Karnataka vs Bengal at Mandya:
The biggest question, of course, is why Mandya? This game was IIRC
scheduled for Bangalore (so even visitors from NZ were considering
attending, apparently). But its being played at Mandya - and started
half-a-day late due to wet conditions.

Only 46 overs were possible, in which time Karnataka made great hay,
ending at 126/0. Both openers Arunkumar with 50* and Rowland with 57*
are still at the crease, capping a quite horrendous season-opening
for Bengal to date. Vijay Bharadwaj is back to strengthen Karnataka's
middle order (with Akhil dropping out), and Bengal left out Ranadeb
Bose for Sabir Ali with no change in fortune.


Sadiq [ only 3 contenders playing this Ranji round ] Yusuf

[Samarth Shah]

***@hotmail.com (Amol Cricketwallah) wrote in message news:<***@posting.google.com>...

<snip>

Post by Amol Cricketwallah
Kumar with him. TN end the first day already in the lead, at 113/5,
and looking to put Rajasthan away on the 2nd day itself.

I would bet anything that had Bombay been in this position, you'd be
claiming that it's not easy to win from here. Narrow first innings
lead not good enough considering TN has to bat last on what you
mentioned already was a very strange pitch.

Post by Amol Cricketwallah
BTW, P Raju is keeping for TN - Dinesh Kaarthik, the bright young U19
keeping prospect, is yet again missing a Ranji game because of a
U19 engagement.
Also, BTW (this is for Samarth, mostly) - any more details on Ramkumar?
He's a left-arm spinner and only 23, and had really not done anything
in his career before (only about 7 games for not-too-many wickets,
IIRC). And then he suddenly burst onto the scene with 10-fer against
Karnataka in the last match, including a 6/42, his first 5-fer. And
yesterday he backed it up with another 4/41 on a first-day pitch. Do
we have a real prospect here?

Ramkumar's an old foe, actually. Played against him in college games.
He played for our traditional rivals. His college captain is a very
close friend of mine. (And may actually be reading this, since he's a
regular RSC lurker.) He's my high-school and club team-mate. (There
was one memorable occasion on which he and I put on a big partnership
in a club game on a Sunday and were on opposite sides in a college
tournament final the next day.) He lives in Chicago and has played
both in your league and for our club in mine.

Anyway, back to Ramkumar. He represented TN state in age-group games,
and has been doing well in 1st Division games for years now. He made
the Ranji probables as a college kid itself. Rose steadily through the
ranks. Wasn't that prominent a player in age-group games, though. Went
to the MAC Spin Foundation and learnt a whole lot there from coach VV
Kumar and occasional visits from the likes of Bedi, Venkat and Pras,
actually. The stint at the MAC Spin Foundation (in his mid-to-late
teens) may actually have been the turning point in his cricketing
development, although the talent was there even before that, leading
him to be selected to represent TN in age-group games. Bit of a late
bloomer, in that, at an age when Sriram and Vidyut were making news on
a national scale, Ramkumar was a fringe TN age-group player. Now those
guys' bowling has fallen/is falling by the wayside while Ramkumar is
doing superbly well!

There used to be a LAO spinner called R. Raghuram, another
acquaintance of mine, who made the TN Ranji probables a few years ago,
who was a nothing in age-group cricket, but suddenly shot into
prominence in his college days. Seems he's faded out too. In terms of
bowling style, Ramkumar is not dissimilar to Raghuram, although I
thought Raghuram was shorter (in height) and managed to flight it a
bit more.

VV Kumar took a lot of interest in Ramkumar. A lot of spinners went to
the MAC spin foundation. In fact, I can attest that former TN Ranji
captain S. Vasudevan, an offie who captained TN when they won the
Ranji and Irani Trophies in '88, was keen to have a look at just about
anyone who took a few wickets at any level of club cricket, as a
possible candidate for the MAC Spin Foundation. Yours truly included.
In its early years, the Foundation struggled a bit, unlike the MRF-PF.
There were a lot of *very* mediocre spinners there aged anywhere
between 13 and 19! Just about anyone managed to get in and there was a
lot of riff-raff about, in the early years.

It's interesting that Kumar spotted the *real* talent among all these
spinners and gave him special attention. Ramkumar, for his part, was
known to be quite hard-working in the MAC-SF nets. He became a bit of
a poster-boy for the MAC Spin Foundation.

He's not very flighty, but is reputed to be fairly nippy off the
pitch. Much better fitness than Vidyut and hence perhaps capable of
longer spells. And not completely useless with the bat, either. Not
unlike Murali Kartik, in all ways, actually.

-Samarth.

[Srinivasan]

Post by Samarth Shah
There used to be a LAO spinner called R. Raghuram, another
acquaintance of mine, who made the TN Ranji probables a few years ago,
who was a nothing in age-group cricket, but suddenly shot into
prominence in his college days. Seems he's faded out too. In terms of
bowling style, Ramkumar is not dissimilar to Raghuram, although I
thought Raghuram was shorter (in height) and managed to flight it a
bit more

Just to let you know, Samarth...R.Raghuram currently plays for Assam
(as does Vasanth Saravanan, R.Sathish and....Kiran Powar)..

Sadiq...Are these professionals being paid by a Tea Organization or
something like that? I mean, whats the incentive for playing for
Assam?

[Ramakrishnan G]

Post by Srinivasan
Sadiq...Are these professionals being paid by a Tea Organization or
something like that? I mean, whats the incentive for playing for
Assam?

Assam, without having any stars, is still an East Zone powerhouse. Not
surprising considering that Tripura and Bihar are competition.
So entry into Assam is easy. Plus, it gives you some mileage in front of the
selectors. It may not make more sense lately because of the Plate and Shield
scheme that's been operational over the past 2 years, though.

[Samarth Shah]

Post by Srinivasan

Post by Samarth Shah
There used to be a LAO spinner called R. Raghuram, another
acquaintance of mine, who made the TN Ranji probables a few years ago,
who was a nothing in age-group cricket, but suddenly shot into
prominence in his college days. Seems he's faded out too. In terms of
bowling style, Ramkumar is not dissimilar to Raghuram, although I
thought Raghuram was shorter (in height) and managed to flight it a
bit more

Just to let you know, Samarth...R.Raghuram currently plays for Assam
(as does Vasanth Saravanan, R.Sathish and....Kiran Powar)..

Interesting. Thanks. Raghuram's kid brother is an old team-mate of
mine. Raghu had a meteoric rise to the Ranji probables. Quite stunning
it was, because he was an absolute nothing at u13 and u16 levels and
was pretty decent at u19 level, but still not that great. (Probably
played Madras City u19s, but no further than that.) From then on, he
just went from strength to strength until one fine day, his was one of
the last few names on the list of 30 published at the start of the
season by the TNCA.

After making the probables that one year, he sort of faded out a bit.
Didn't do much even in I Div. cricket for the next year or two, IIRC.
Interesting to note he's now playing for Tamil Nadu North, i.e.,
Assam.

BTW Sadiq, Goa was Tamil Nadu North long before it was Bombay South,
what with VBC (arguably the father of Goa cricket), Gokulakrishnan and
Tanveer having turned out for them in the past. Of course, you can
claim that Assam was actually Bombay East long before it was TN North,
what with Rajput and Pandit having turned out for it in the mid-90s.

-Samarth.

Post by Srinivasan
Sadiq...Are these professionals being paid by a Tea Organization or
something like that? I mean, whats the incentive for playing for
Assam?

[Srinivasan]

Include S.Suresh, TN's current captain in that list..I guess he was part of
the Goa Bandwagon too...and the amazing thingie is that he started his Ranji
career with Goa..

Aside: I was talking to with a Wisden-Cricinfo correspondent and in a
moment, I got emotional saying how could Suresh be named TN captain and also
how could he bat at the opening slot usurping Sriram's position and thereby
jeopardizing his India cap.? How could a mediocre player like Suresh get to
be a captain and also a regular opener over a
India-Fringer-for-long-time?..Pat came the reply asking if I had seen Suresh
play..to which I said no..and then came the lecture as to why I should watch
a player before judging him from Cricinfo scorecards!.

List of TNers who are right now away-on-duty in Elite competition :

Satish, Raghuram and Vasanth Saravanan for Assam.
and
C.Hemant Kumar for Kerala--the one who started with 2 consecutive hundreds
in the Ranji and then got a 87 in his third game.

Vidyut S played for Haryana a season ago .. I guess..he is back now and is
in contention for the all-rounder's spot.

No sign of Gokulakrishnan, Kumaran, Balaji Rao or S.Mahesh though.

Post by Samarth Shah
BTW Sadiq, Goa was Tamil Nadu North long before it was Bombay South,
what with VBC (arguably the father of Goa cricket), Gokulakrishnan and
Tanveer having turned out for them in the past. Of course, you can
claim that Assam was actually Bombay East long before it was TN North,
what with Rajput and Pandit having turned out for it in the mid-90s.

[Cric8wala]

Post by Srinivasan
Just to let you know, Samarth...R.Raghuram currently plays for Assam
(as does Vasanth Saravanan, R.Sathish and....Kiran Powar)..

And a tremendous Assam fightback led by Powar and Sarvanan, too.

Assam collapsed for 180 allout on the first day. At the end of D2 Gujarat were
213/6 and looking quite good, already 33 ahead and looking to add on with
Mukund Parmar and Timil Patel batting (havnig already put on 65).

Then yesterday, on the third morning, Raghram bowled well picking up 2 wickets,
and old veteran Sukhvinder Singh continued his good spell picking up 1 more.
Gujarat 234 allout, a lead of 54 - Sukhvinder 26-14-23-3 (!!) and Raghuram
36-18-45-3.

Trailing by 54 and needing to win to get any poins, Assam came out blazing.
44/1 in 9 overs, 56/2 in 15 overs. Then Kiran Powar and Vasanth Sarvanan got
together - and put on 200 in 44 overs! Powar 108 in 146 balls, Sarvanan 93* in
207 balls. Assam ended the day 302/3 in 66 overs - a lead of 248. This was
Kiran Powar's 3rd century in 7 First Division Ranji games, at an average of 72
without a single not-out to boost it.. but, of course, he still isnt in
contention for any India-A type games or anything of that sort.(Meanwhile Rohan
Gavaskar and others, with averages in the 40s, remain automatic India-A picks).



With one full day to go and 2 spinners who bowled quite well on first innings
in their ranks, Assam will probably look to add a few runs in the first half
hour tomorrow, and then declare and try and bowl Gujarat out. Or maybe even
declare overnight, who knows - after all, only 212 runs were scored on the
first day and only 181 runs were scored on the second day. And if they do
declare overnight, setting 248 to win for Gujarat - it will be interesting to
see if Gujarat settles for 2 points from the first innings lead or tries to go
for 4 points from an outright victory. Should be a fascinating day in prospect.



Sadiq [ who wonders where Joglekar moved to ] Yusuf

[DiiVolunt]

Post by Amol Cricketwallah
End of first day. With most of the real suspense gone, since tour spots
to Australia are basically booked up apparently, with 20 already being
announced. (Still dont see the point of that. Why not wait till the 18th
for the final 16, without announcing a 20? That way you get 2 full Ranji
games to help decide, at least. Anyway).
The old-firm clash, biggest rivalry of the 70s and 80s and still what
most of us Bombay-fans consider our biggest rivals, IMHO. And for some
reason they decide to play this big game at a brand new ground, the
Jamia Millia Ground! On apparently a totally crappy pitch, where
the top of the pitch was coming off right from the start, apparently.
Delhi won a great toss and batted, obviously. Bombay went with debutant
Munaf Patel and Robin Morris to open - they didnt take any pacemen
other than Munaf, basically (Morris plays as an allrounder, and might
play as a batsman alone sometimes). Morris bowled 5 overs all day
long. The spinner (Nilesh Kulkarni) was on after only 6 overs of the
day had been bowled - and he got Australia-bound Akash Chopra in his
first over itself, caught behind off one that spun and turned for 6.
Meanwhile Gambhir took charge and Oberoi grafted - Oberoi made only
9 runs of a 72-run partnership as Gambhir waded into the Bombay
attack (reaching 50 in 46 balls, with 7 fours and a six), before Munaf
claimed his first wicket in Bombay colours, clean bowling Oberoi (may
there be many more :-) At lunch Delhi were sitting pretty at 109/2 with
Gambir 81* and Manhas 12*.
After lunch it was all spin. Manhas caught behind off Bahutule for 12,
then Gambhir caught at short-fine-leg off Bahutule for 96 (made in
3 hours, quite terrific). Jadeja caught behind off Kulkarni for 12,
Bhatia stumped off Bahutule for 27, Dahiya caught behind off Kulkarni
for 11. Sharandeep to Kulkarni, then Sanghvi and Nehra to Bahutule.
Eventually Delhi 199 allout in 70 overs. No real way to judge Munaf
Patel on a pitch like this, but 12-1-38-1 overall for him. The spinners
doing all the damage - Kulkarni 30-6-62-4 and Bahutule 21-3-45-5.
A very good effort by both, particularly Sairaj - he was 3rd spinner
for the tests against NZ and in the squad, but didnt play, and then
got called up for an ODI game where he bowled 3 poor overs, and has
slid right off the selectorial radar again. A fine effort yesterday
as captain however, 5/45 when Delhi might have run away with it.
Bombay is 15/0 at the end of the day - with Delhi opening their bowling
with Nehra and Sharandeep Singh! On this sort of crappy pitch 200
might well turn out to be a very decent score indeed - the reports
claim it basically looked a non-prepared track on Day One, so Gambir's
knock might still turn out to be critical. Once again, I have no idea
why they'd play such a big game on a brand-new and apparently very
crappy pitch like this one.
Another strange-looking pitch - though at least the KL Saini ground is
not making its debut IIRC :-)
This time TN won the toss and put Rajasthan in - and they collapsed
to 97 allout. 19-3-26-3 for Balaji - but he didnt actually do most
of the early damage, bar the huge early wicket of Khoda. Rajasthan
were 41/1 before the slide, and once again left-arm spinner Ramkumar
was the major factor in it, claiming the middle-order himself (#3,
#4 and #6, with #5 being runout). Balaji returned to claim #7 and
#8, and Ramkumar wrapped it up, and finished with 17-2-41-4. For
the second consecutive match a terrific performance - after the best
performance in his career in the previous win over Karnataka (a 10-fer
match, including the first 5-fer of his career).
TN responded shakily - losing Suresh off the very first ball of the
innings. Ramesh fell soon for 5 as well (he now has 8, 18 and 5 so
far this season). A recovery with Sriram and Badrinath, before they
fell for 24 and 41 respectively, and then Madanagopal fell for 10.
Sharath still holding firm with 21* at the end of the day, and Ganesh
Kumar with him. TN end the first day already in the lead, at 113/5,
and looking to put Rajasthan away on the 2nd day itself.
BTW, P Raju is keeping for TN - Dinesh Kaarthik, the bright young U19
keeping prospect, is yet again missing a Ranji game because of a
U19 engagement.
Also, BTW (this is for Samarth, mostly) - any more details on Ramkumar?
He's a left-arm spinner and only 23, and had really not done anything
in his career before (only about 7 games for not-too-many wickets,
IIRC). And then he suddenly burst onto the scene with 10-fer against
Karnataka in the last match, including a 6/42, his first 5-fer. And
yesterday he backed it up with another 4/41 on a first-day pitch. Do
we have a real prospect here?
Railways batted first, and ended a pretty disappointing day at 243/8 at
Palakkad. This is the same place where Punjab put Kerala to the sword,
so Railways must surely have hoped for a better score. Most of their
batsmen got going, and then gave it away.
An 80 run opening partnership between Pagnis and Bangar, and then
Railways progressed only 138/1 and in good shape. But Pagnis got 42,
Bangar 45, TP Singh 40 - and none of them went on. And then the
middle order fell away to Ananthapadmanabhan. Railways slid to 177/7,
but eventually recovered to 243/8 due to Shreyas Khanolkar's 43* at
the end of the day. Veteran Apban turning in yet another fine
performance - 17 overs, 4/34 by day's end.
BTW, the slide of recent-India-prospect Tinu Yohannan continues. He
ended yesterday at 17-2-46-0 - with 12 no balls and 1 wide in 17
overs! This follows up 29 overs, 0/105 with 16 no balls and 3 wides -
so Yohannan has yet to claim a wicket this Ranji season, with over
150 runs conceded.
UP ended the day 233/3, with opener R Prakash batting thru the day
for 134* and Jyoti Yadav getting 72. UP were 192/0 at one stage, so
they will be a little disappointed at giving it away a little bit
at day's end. Mike's Pandey hasnt had a bat yet - and Nikhil Chopra
is back in the UP side (so maybe he was only injured for the last
match). For some reason neither Vineet Sharma nor Amit Uniyal (the
fast bowlers for Punjab) are playing this game.
A disappointig first day for Assam, 180 allout. Gujarat stuttered in
response however, 32/2 to end the day. Only Subrajit Saikia with 56
and former TN player Vasant Sarvanan with 58 got any runs for Assam
(and former Bombay player Manoj Joglekar isnt in the side, so maybe
he moved away again). Majumder had 5/47.
Gautam Dutta struck early for Assam getting both wickets at the end
of the day (7 overs, 2/5). But veteran Mukund Parmar is back to lead
Gujarat, so their middle-order ougth to prove stiffer than in the
match against Hyderabad in the first round.
The biggest question, of course, is why Mandya? This game was IIRC
scheduled for Bangalore (so even visitors from NZ were considering
attending, apparently). But its being played at Mandya - and started
half-a-day late due to wet conditions.
Only 46 overs were possible, in which time Karnataka made great hay,
ending at 126/0. Both openers Arunkumar with 50* and Rowland with 57*
are still at the crease, capping a quite horrendous season-opening
for Bengal to date. Vijay Bharadwaj is back to strengthen Karnataka's
middle order (with Akhil dropping out), and Bengal left out Ranadeb
Bose for Sabir Ali with no change in fortune.
Sadiq [ only 3 contenders playing this Ranji round ] Yusuf

I think Bhandari is injured, as Bhatia took 2nd new ball with Nehra.

Delhi were 194/3 and collpased to 223/9 and Gambhir will go away
soon!!
boo hoo!
Bengal is plumbing new depths! Twas a great fall.

On same ground a month back, Ajay sharma 's kid took 7 wickets against
himachal u-15 or so. Other alternate was to use JLN but services
played a friendly with delhi there and scored 32 all out!!

Kotla really missing you.

Of 11 delhi 1st class grounds:


Army Headquarters, Delhi : Services practise pitch.
Feroz Shah Kotla, Delhi : Under repair.
Harbax Singh Stadium, Delhi : Hockey team is using it,
IIT Ground, Delhi : Lost out to Jamia millia in strange
circumstances..
Irwin Stadium, Delhi : not big enough, but nobody comes to watch
ranjis anyway! this is Universities pitch i think.
Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, New Delhi : Services match was killer!
Karnail Singh Stadium, Delhi : Railways HQ
Model Sports Complex, Palam, Delhi : I think it is under Haryana
jurisdiction.
and not big enough..
National Stadium, Delhi : Railways
Polo Ground, Delhi : army uses it now along with Universities..
Roshanara Club Ground, Delhi : This could be a venue option too. I
don't know why they plumped for Jamia after the diaster on october
12th..


regards
Pranshu B Saxena