Published: Sep 01, 2016, 01:03 PM (IST)
Edited: Sep 01, 2016, 06:52 PM (IST)
Greetings everyone! Welcome to CricketCountry’s live match coverage of the second fixture of the Duleep Trophy 2016-17 between India Red and India Blue. The second game of the tournament is heading towards a draw as rain has played spoilsport for a better park of three days. Overcast conditions at Noida with rain playing hide and seek since yesterday, Day Four’s play is in danger as clouds are hovering over Greater Noida. So far we have only seen first innings as India Blue are currently 5 for 285 with Dinesh Karthik and Sheldon Jackson in middle. As the second match of Duleep Trophy reaches it’s final day at Shahid Vijay Singh Pathik Stadium in Greater Noida, we’ll bring you all the live updates, stay tuned!
Karthik and Jackson have put on 85 runs for sixth wicket so far. Karthik is batting on 35 whereas Jackson is on brink of his first half-century in pink ball cricket. With the second match heading towards a draw and chances of rain on final day , these two will look to attack the bowlers and get as many runs as they can. Karthik has been in good form lately having scored a half-century in Tamil Nadu Premier League 2016 (TNPL). READ: Pakistan to play day-night Test vs West Indies at Dubai in October 2016
Kuldeep Yadav has been effective with his left-arm Chinaman bowling picking up four wickets and enforcing a batting collapse after 151 run partnership between Gautam Gambhir and Mayank Agarwal. Baba Aparajith, Suryakumar Yadav and Karn Sharma got out cheaply and contributed to the batting collapse.
India Red have already won the first Pink Ball match in Duleep Trophy led by Yuvraj Singh against Suresh Raina‘s India Green side. Gambhir though, the captain of the India Blue side, talking to Hindustan Times, said, “It (pink ball cricket) is very exciting, especially when lights are on. I am looking forward to it. I know the pink ball does move a bit, but as an opener I have to deal with it. That challenge is always there, even against the red SG or Kookaburra balls. However, as professional cricketers, we must be ready. And the spinners have to get used to gripping the pink ball.”
He added, “It comes down to mindset. The basics of the game remain the same. You still have to negotiate the new ball, and first session of first day is going to be crucial. I am not reading too much into it. Maybe the players were a bit nervous considering that it was the first day of the domestic season. Once the nerves go away and you hit the game mode, things do get easy. I haven’t seen the wicket yet, but having the right mindset is important,”
Gambhir concluded by saying, “A lot of people have told me to focus on individual performance in Duleep Trophy. Well, that’s not going to happen under me. We will be playing as a team and to win the tournament. That’s the way cricket should be played.”
Meanwhile, Yuvraj felt “it moved a bit more than SG Test” while Robin Uthappa‘s observations varied from “colour change” to “lack of reverse swing” as the first set of inputs on Board of Control for Cricket in India‘s (BCCI) much talked about ‘Pink ball’ day-night experiment came to the fore. While there is no denying that day-night cricket always brings in more people as one saw at least 800-1000 spectators during peak evening hours on all three days of the inaugural Duleep Trophy match, the BCCI will still need to figure out a few things before they seriously think of pursuing the idea of a Test match.
For starters, there has been varied opinions on whether an individual batsman has been able to sight the pink kookaburra ball well or not but everyone agreed that not much effort was required to “maintain the ball” unlike the conventional red kookaburra, SG Test or Dukes.
While Yuvraj did not have a great time with the willow but his input will be the most valuable one for the BCCI. He stated after his side’s emphatic win, “I thought the pink ball moved a bit more than the SG ball. It was pretty exciting, the pink ball doesn’t go old. It was coming onto the bat nicely.”
Veteran glovesman Parthiv Patel sees future in Pink ball Test but he conceded that this ball skids a bit more. He added, “I had no problem in sighting. During the day, I could see the ball better. Not used to getting the pink ball coming to you. It’s a matter of getting used to it but visibility was not a problem. As far as future is concerned, too early to say. Definitely there is a future. But dew could be a factor. The ball skid and moved more. Also I don’t think you can have Tests in sub-continent using this much of grass,” quoted Parthiv.
However both Uthappa and Parthiv feel that reverse swing will be difficult with pink ball as the shine and gloss of the ball doesn’t seem to wear out. “We tried hard but there was no reverse swing. There is conventional swing but the shine is maintained so well that there is no chance of reverse swing. I also found that colour varied at different times of the day. At one point, it looked light pink, followed by orange at one point of time before it looked bright pink under lights. I think we will get used to it as much as we play,” said Uthappa in conclusion.
India Blue Playing XI:
Gautam Gambhir (c), Mayank Agarwal, Baba Aparajith, Suryakumar Yadav, Dinesh Karthik (wk), Sheldon Jackson, Parvez Rasool, Mohit Sharma, Karn Sharma, Pankaj Singh, Krishna Das
India Red Playing XI:
Srikar Bharat (wk), Abhinav Mukund, Sudip Chatterjee, Yuvraj Singh (c), Gurkeerat Singh Mann, Nitish Rana, Akshay Wakhare, Kuldeep Yadav, Pradeep Sangwan, Ishwar Pandey, Nathu Singh
(With inputs from PTI)
