The curtain momentarily fell on Monday evening on the proceedings of the Ranji Trophy, which will remain dormant until December 24. But the lead characters cannot wander off the stage as they are contracted to appear in another production beginning on Wednesday - the Duleep Trophy. The Ranji hiatus provides an opportune moment to relive some of the bright and dark sides to the season so far.

The overwhelming preponderance of contests in the preliminary phase of this tournament can be conveniently sorted into two categories. Those where the result is predestined (eg. Bengal v Tripura) and those where the result is meaningless (eg. Punjab v Haryana) as it would normally make no difference to their chances of qualifying. Indeed to call these matches contests, requires a peculiar sense of humour, for contests they assuredly are not. The same teams qualify for the next stage with unfailing monotony (all right, so Mumbai didn't qualify last year but it was only for the third time in 64 seasons), so clearly the competitive instinct is dead and the only thing left to play for is individual glory. This phase of the Ranji Trophy represents nothing more than a futile gesture to convention as the powers that be have got it into their collective skulls that this is the only way in which the tournament can be organised.

The North Zone league is the only one to have completed all its engagements. Punjab, Delhi and Haryana have again qualified for the Super League for the millionth time in a row, the only concession to change being that Punjab, and not Delhi, is the group leader this time.

Wicketkeeper batsman Pankaj Dharmani has been at the heart of Punjab's success with successive scores of 70, 305 not out, 202 not out and 101 in his first four innings for a total of 678 at an average of 339. This included a run of 608 runs without being dismissed - close to KC Ibrahim's first class record of 709 in the 1947-48 domestic season. The bubble finally burst in his last match against Haryana when he sullied his average by failing to score. Dharmani, who played without distinction for India in a few ODI's as a batsman must be eyeing the keeper's slot in the national side with some degree of expectation for the current occupant MSK Prasad is revelling in distinguished mediocrity.

Reetinder Sodhi has been knocking to deaf ears on the doors of national selection for some time. He put up a good all round show with a hundred, a 79 and two five wicket hauls in an innings. But the lynchpin of Punjab's bowling was Sharandeep Singh who had one 10 wicket and one nine wicket haul. Navjot Sidhu was not required after scoring 1 & 2 in Punjab's opening match against Himachal. His fortunes contrasted sharply with that of his contemporary and fellow India discard, Azharuddin.

The Punjab-Delhi match was always going to be a needle match not least because Delhi has a fair number of Punjabis itself. Punjab bested Delhi in the scramble for the first innings lead but only just, as Delhi replied to Punjab's 530-7 declared with 527. Virender Sehwag, Ashu Dani and Mithun Minhas were the most consistent batsmen for Delhi with two hundreds each. Delhi also has as good a new ball pair as any in the country in Ashish Nehra and Amit Bhandari. They took a five wicket haul each against Services and Nehra, who was good enough to play for India in February but does not even make the A side now, took 11 wickets in Delhi's trouncing of J&K. Haryana was always going to play third fiddle and came through on the strength of their batting.

The 31-year-old Himachal skipper, Rajiv Nayyar, was plucked from obscurity but for all the wrong reasons. While his 271 in 1015 minutes was a feat of remarkable attrition, in the context of the game it was also remarkably self-serving. Himachal's first innings ended late on the final evening, allowing J & K 5 overs in their second knock. At least Hanif Mohammed, whom Nayyar eclipsed as the longest first class innings, played a match saving knock at Bridgetown in 1957-58. Nayyar's was neither match winning nor match saving, only match killing.

The Central Zone is the only league that bucks the trend by being played in a competitive spirit, what with having not three but four evenly matched teams. Although Madhya Pradesh topped the group last season, they are virtually out of the running this year for a place in the Super League. They finished their engagements with 14 points from 4 matches, behind Rajasthan and Railways with 18 and 16 respectively, from three matches each. Fourth placed UP has 11 points with a match in hand against minnows Vidarbha and they should clinch the remaining berth with minimum fuss.

MP were deprived of an outright victory against Railways after an audaciously defensive batting display by the latter on the last day. Starting the day at 3-0 after following on, Railways made 83 more in a full day's play (104 overs) for the loss of five wickets. They obviously distrusted the hoary precept that attack is the best form of defence. The four man MP spin attack, including Chauhan and Hirwani, was stymied although Majithia had the dubious satisfaction of crafting arguably the most miserly analysis in history: 20-20-0-1!

Jai Prakash Yadav's 265 went in vain for MP in this match. Yadav showed that he's no mug with the ball either, taking six wickets in an innings in the next match against Rajasthan. But the big disappointment was Amay Khurasia. His scores of 25, 12, 31, 22, 22, 4 and 16 belied the fact that he was India material not more than four months ago. Sanjeev Sharma, the former India medium pacer whose enduring claim to fame is having Graham Gooch dropped off him on 36 (culprit:More) en route to his 333, having switched states from Delhi to Rajasthan, has also apparently switched his identity from bowler to batsman. He hit a century against Vidarbha and followed it up with 78 not out and 100 not out vs UP. Murali Kartik managed to get in a 12 wicket haul for Railways in the only match he played, against Vidarbha, before moving on to bigger stages to parade his talents.

The South Zone league threw up the only 'surprise' of the tournament so far with Tamil Nadu defeating holders Karnataka in Bangalore by 116 runs with 5.4 overs to spare. But it was no surprise really with Karnataka missing seven first eleven players on duty with India & India A. Of course TN missed Ramesh and Kumaran as well. The worrying aspect of the defeat for Karmataka is that it opens up the third qualifying spot for an assault by upstarts Andhra. With all six teams having played three matches each, Hyderabad lead the table with 21 points followed by TN with 18. Karnataka with 16 and Andhra with 14 follow and while they play each other in one game, Andhra also has a match in hand against Kerala while Karnataka is yet to take on formidable Hyderabad.

Mohd. Azharuddin has been pointedly ignoring the crude hints being dropped by the selectors to retire. And he has done his cause no harm with a score of 200 against Goa, which is not exactly the best attack in the country. Anything less may have brought his competence into question. VVS Laxman also stroked his way to two 100's in two innings against Goa and Kerala, against attacks which are perhaps a trifle less well endowed than Queensland. The ageless wonder Kanwaljeet Singh has been a no less vital cog in the wheel with match hauls of 10 & 11 v Goa and Kerala en route to becoming the highest wicket taker for Hyderabad. Having disposed off the rabbits, Hyderabad now has its work cut out to preserve its lead, with clashes looming ahead against its two arch rivals.

For Tamil Nadu, S Sharath, who captained the side when Robin Singh was away on national duty, made 91 and 106 not out against Kerala and 83 in the win over Karnataka. Rowland Barrington of Karnataka joined the select list of batsmen making a century on first class debut in the match against Kerala.

It's early days yet in the West Zone league. Mumbai leads with 11 points from two games followed by Baroda on 10 from two. Mumbai began with an innings victory over Maharashtra with rookie spinner Rajesh Pawar taking 11 wickets. However they contrived to lose the first innings lead to Baroda's last wicket pair in their second game. The Mumbai top order of Jaffer, Paranjpe, Majumdar and Kambli have yet to make the transition from fallible human beings to relentless run machines. Nilesh Kulkarni has also looked sharp with two five wicket hauls in an innings, although his lack of penetration in the Irani Trophy game has condemned him to the sidelines.

Mumbai exile Rohan Gavaskar has been having a ball a couple of thousand kilometres to the east. He and Srikant Kalyani took a liking to the Tripura attack, flaying it for double centuries apiece as Bengal won by an innings. They are now top of the East Zone league with 13 points from two matches. Bihar too rode on a victory over Tripura to gather 11 points from two. Orissa, the third participant in this three horse race, has garnered five points from the only match it has played, against Bihar where it got a first innings lead of four runs. For its part Assam has also done considerably well. It has only three points from one match but almost grabbed the first innings lead against Bengal who were bailed out by their last wicket pair.

Forty of the sixty matches in the preliminary stage have been concluded. But it is debatable if this whole elaborate exercise has made anybody the wiser. Indeed the only changes in the qualifiers to the Super League from last year are likely to be UP for MP, Mumbai for Maharashtra and perhaps Andhra for a depleted Karnataka. Except for two or three teams, the same list could have been drawn up before the season began. In effect, this whole rigmarole only serves to decide three qualifiers. The Board of Control for Cricket in India should ponder in its infinite wisdom whether this kind of format is in the interests of Indian cricket.

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