Day 2 Report

Today's highlights included Laxman's ninth Ranji century, and Kanwaljeet Singh's bowling.

The day saw 239 runs being scored in 89.3 overs, and 11 wickets falling. Hyderabad did not capitalize on the 270 run start it had yesterday, the overnight batsmen managing to add only 13 runs today. Laxman, resuming his innings at 43, straight away hit his stride, driving Amit Bhandari for two fours to reach his 50.

He duly went on to complete his century in 94 balls with 21 boundaries. He shared a brief 45-run partnership (106 balls) for the seventh wicket with Venkatapathy Raju. Hyderabad's innings folded thirteen minutes before tea.

After an early tea, Delhi commenced its innings, only to have Kanwaljeet and Venkatapathy Raju torment them, especially the latter, who grabbed three wickets to leave Delhi at 69 for 4 wicket at close.

Hyderabad will hope to bowl out Delhi within another 170 runs to enforce the follow-on, and press for an outright victory.

Day 3 Report

At close of play today, hosts Hyderabad are in a commanding position with an overall lead of 467 runs. Laxman is unbeaten on 67, heading for his third successive century in as many innings. He has scored 219 against Baroda and 110 in the first innings of this match, in his previous two innings. Prior to this he scored 7 and 51 against Rajasthan, for a total of 454 runs in his last three matches.

As for the Hyderabad bowlers, Kanwaljeet Singh will be looking to surpass his best match figures of 14-100, registered against Karnataka at this venue in last season's Ranji Semi-final.

In the morning Hyerabad met with immediate success as the Delhi skipper and wicket-keeper, Vijay Dahiya was caught by a diving Vinay Kumar at point off Kanwaljeet Singh. A brief 26 run partnership ensued between Sandeep Angoorala and Pankaj Joshi, produced in 50 balls and 25 minutes. It was broken when Arvind Shetty fielding at back-ward point fired a throw to the strikers' end to run-out Sandeep Angoorala.

A bit of history

Kanwaljeet claimed his 11th five-wicket haul in his 20th over when debutant Harinder Chaudhary was snapped up by Vishnu Vardhan at backward square-leg. Pankaj Joshi in the meantime resorted to the long handle and hoisted the Sardar over mid-wicket for a big six followed by two fours in collecting 15 runs from his 24th over. This denied Kanwaljeet registering the best bowling figures against Delhi by a Hyderabadi Bowler.

The record is held by Left-arm Chinaman bowler Syed Mumtaz Hussain who way back in the 1970-71 Pre quarter-final played at Delhi, had figures of 31-11-83-8 in Delhi's second innings. This was Hyderabad's very first encounter with Delhi. Delhi went on to score 235 in that instance and won the match eventually by 122 runs.

Kanwaljeet's bowling Statistics

Kanwaljeet's best Ranji bowling performance (25.4-5-86-8) was in last season's Ranji Semi-final versus Karnataka at the Gymkhana Grounds, Secunderabad.

This year his overall figures read 399.3-111-966-40 in 10 matches.

His over-all First-class career bowling figures over a span of 84 matches are; 2861.2 overs, 699 maidens, 7192 runs, 236 wickets, Average 30.47, 5 or more wickets - 12 times, and 10 or more - once.

Day 4 Report

The reasons why domestic cricket in India is in decline were quite apparent on day four of the Quarter-final between Hyderabad and Delhi. Instead of setting a reachable target for Delhi and attempting an outright win, Hyderabad chose to bat most of the day. Delhi needed to score a mind blowing 685 runs to win but at the end of play had managed only 122/3. While Hyderbad might still win the game outright on the final day, Delhi will probably play cautiously for a draw. And that would make for bland cricket.

Hyderabad's innings continued from where it left off yesterday. The overnight pair of Laxman and Raju put on 98 runs for the 7th wicket. Raju gave excellent support to the V.S.S.Laxman who completed his 10th Ranji Trophy century today. This was his third successive century in as many innings. Venkatapathy Raju was finally run out for 44. At lunch Laxman was unbeaten on 147. NP Singh on 37 was the other batsman.

After lunch, NP Singh added only two runs before he was caught by D.Sharma off Rahul Sanghvi. He had made a stroke filled 39 which included four boundaries. The partnership between Singh and Laxman added 88 runs (off 130 balls) to the Hyderabad total.

When Laxman struck his 20th four (besides 2 sixes) to move from 168 to 172, he had scored 501 runs in the last three Ranji-Trophy innings, (219 against Baroda, 110 in the first innings and the present knock). Laxman became the third Hyderabad batsman to score a century in each innings of a match. The other two being M Azharuddin (121 & 105 not against Andhra in 1984-85) and MV Sridhar (107 and 102 not out against Goa in 1994-95). Hyderabad declared its innings immediately after the dismissal of Laxman at 193. Laxman had added 309 runs with four partners after the fall of the 5th wicket at 95. Quite a remarkable achievement indeed!

Delhi started its second innings with the impossible task of scoring 685 runs in less than one and half days. Losing Akash Chopra's wicket when the score was zero did not help in anyway! Chopra edged a delivery from Vishnuvardhan to the wicket keeper Youraj Singh. Ashu Dani and Pankaj Joshi added 76 runs (off 103 balls) for the 2nd wicket when Kanwaljeet Singh struck in his very first over. Dani was the victim. It was suprising that Singh was not brought into the attack till the 18th over. Five runs later Venkatapathi Raju was responsible for Akash Malhotra being consumed by wicket-keeper Youraj Singh.

Delhi can only play for a draw on the final day because to win they would have to score an impossible 563 runs of a minimum of 90 overs.

Day 5 Report

To make it to the semi final of the Ranji Trophy, Delhi needed to score 563 runs on the last day of the match against Hyderabad. While this target was probably unattainable Delhi could have salvaged some pride by putting up a good fight or even playing for a draw. Instead most of the players gave up rather tamely. It was all over so quickly for Delhi that 25 minutes still remained for the lunch interval. Hyderabad needed only 28.3 overs to bundle up the visiting team. Delhi made only 246.

It was once again the Hyderabad spin attack of V.Raju and Kanwaljit that crushed Delhi. First to strike was Kanwaljit Singh. In only the second over of the day he trapped Vijay Dhaiya plumb in front by deceiving the batsman with a flighted delivery that kept a trifle low. Once Dhaiya got out a steady parade of batsmen went back into the pavilion. Only Pankaj Joshi and Devender Sharma made any sort of impact on the inniings. Joshi made 50 of 119 balls with 5 fours. Sharma hit some lusty blows off the spinners, he clobbered Kanwaljeet Singh for 6 fours and Venkatapathy Raju for 4 fours, and remained unbeaten on 68. Raju took three wickets, including the valuable wicket of Joshi.

KANWALJIT SINGH RE-WRITES HISTORY:

In claiming 5 wickets today Kanwaljit Singh surpassed the record of most wickets taken by a Hyderabad player in a season. He went past the former Hyderabad off spinner and Captain Arshad Ayub's record set in the 1991-92 season. Arshad's season figures read as 401.1-93-1078-43; Avg. 25.06 [5 or more wickets in an innings 6 times and 10 or more wickets once], while Kanwaljeet Singh's figures read at the end of the Quarter-Final match against Delhi are 421-114-1034-45; Avg. 22.97 [5 or more wickets 3 times and 10 or more wickets once].

The main wicket takers for Hyderabad this season for Hyderabad are: Kanwaljeet Singh 45, Narenderpal Singh 42, Venkatapathi Raju 41. The main run getters being: Nanda Kishore 721, V V S Laxman 642, M V Sridhar 613, Vanka Pratap 524, Arvind Shetty 401, Daniel Manohar 398 and Vinay Kumar 386.