Run feast at the Kotla

What happened on Saturday night against Bangladesh had huge ramifications across the country.

What happened on Saturday night against Bangladesh had huge ramifications across the country. And Dilip Vengsarkar and his two other selectors 8212;Venkatapathy Raju and Ranjib Biswal8212;were certainly not immune to it. There8217;s little they can do about it now, but if evidence from the first quarter final of the Premier Cup between Delhi and Mumbai can be picked for future reference, then Wasim Jaffer, Gautam Gambhir and debutant Ajinkya Rahane will revolve in their thoughts.

The openers from both sides initiated a run feast as bowlers were pasted to all corners on a wicket that didn8217;t have any appreciable movement. The hot sun made matters worse for the bowlers as Delhi made a dream start after Shikhar Dhawan won the toss and opted to bat first.

Openers Gambhir and Aakash Chopra put on 183, the former in particular played attackingly with some crackling drives and square-cuts to reach his hundred in just 91 balls 11215;4, 1215;6. Gambhir was eventually out for 105 but Mitthun Manhas, coming in at No. 3 and Dhawan kept the scoring rate up.

Meanwhile, Chopra showed he too can play the shorter version competently with a neat 74 from 98 balls before getting run out. Delhi looked good for a total in excess of 300 but failed to capitalise towards the end and wound up 297/5 in 50 overs.

Wasim Jaffer looked in prime nick, middling every ball and hardly missing anything. He cut, drove, swept, pulled his way to a majestic unbeaten 170 to guide Mumbai to a comprehensive six-wicket victory. Jaffer was severe on both Ashish Nehra and Ishant Sharma, as the Delhi new-ball attack gave him width to free his arms early in the innings.

The Test opener, who failed to make his mark in the ODIs in South Africa, looked in great nick here as he single-handedly took the game away from Delhi.

He was lucky though, after chopping a ball from Ishant on to his stumps 8212; when he was on just 18 and the team score reading 52/0 8212; off a no-ball.

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Television replays showed that umpire AV Jayaprakash had erred in making that tight call, which otherwise could have tilted the game the other way in hindsight.

At the other end was Ajinkya Rahane, the under-19 star who blazed his way with a series of hundreds in junior cricket. Rahane, too, joined the party with some thundering shots over the in-field 8212; a hook off Nehra for a six at backward square-leg being the pick of his 61-run knock that contained four boundaries and two sixes.

Delhi came back briefly into the match when Rahane, Rohit Sharma, Amol Muzumdar and Ramesh Powar fell in quick succession with the asking rate hovering just above six an over but the calm presence of Jaffer and the gritty Abhishek Nayar saw them through to the semi-finals with exactly an over to spare.

Brief scores: Delhi 297/5 in 50 overs Gambhir 105, Chopra 74, Manhas 47; Salvi 2/64 lost to Mumbai 301/4 in 49 overs Jaffer 170 not out, Rahane 61 .