Lesser lights get a chance to shine

The international calendar and the frequent India ‘A’ tours and competitions have made it impossible for most ‘stars’ to represent their states even if they wanted to.

However, it offers fringe and untried players the chance to showcase their talent and temperament and catch the selectors’ attention.

Also, several established players — Gautam Gambhir, Sanjay Bangar, Dinesh Mongia, Rohan Gavaskar, Mohd Kaif, Amit Bhandari — have put in consistent performances to move a step closer to a recall to the highest level.

Balaji and Murali Kartik earned berths for the tour Down Under merely on the basis of their show here.

Some new faces emerged on the horizon even as some of the ‘veterans’ continued to serve their respective states well. Left-arm spinner Ramkumar of Tamil Nadu recorded the only hat-trick (against Karnataka) so far while Punjab medium pacer Vineet Sharma had dream figures of 5 for 3 from 4.4 overs against Andhra (the latter were dismissed for 30).

It’s been a successful season for bowlers in general, with the BCCI laying emphasis on ‘result-oriented wickets’ for domestic cricket. As many as eight bowlers have recorded 10-wicket match hauls, with over 40 centuries recorded.

On the eve of the last phase, 35-time champions Mumbai (20 points from 6 matches) are way ahead of other teams and are the first to make it to the knockout (semifinal) stage, from either group in the Elite Division.

The controversies, however, have been with the Delhi team. Specifically, with Ajay Jadeja’s comeback to first-class cricket for the state side after the Delhi High Court allowed him to play in domestic tournaments, setting aside BCCI’s five-year ban for his alleged involvement in match-fixing. Ironically, Jadeja has scored the only double century recorded so far in this season’s Elite competition.

As a team, however, Delhi hasn’t been very fortunate. Semifinalists last year, Delhi failed to qualify for the knockout phase this time, thanks to various inside and outside factors that have been afflicting the Capital’s cricket scene in the past decade or so.

Baroda, twice finalists in the last three years, fared poorly, getting just four points while former runners-up Uttar Pradesh, with a combination of experience and youth, have an outside chance of qualifying. Their innings win over Baroda at Baroda was a result of some good performances from the UP boys.

Punjab (11), Railways (10) and UP (9) will fight it out in their last league games in an effort to join Mumbai in the last four from Group A.

It will be either Karnataka (11) or Hyderabad (10) who should join Tamil Nadu (15) from Group B. TN have completed their league engagements while others have a game on hand.

Kerala, who were elevated to the Elite from Plate last season, look likely to go back as they have been able to collect just two points (Group B).