India Blue 105/0 in 34.2 overs | Duleep Trophy Live updates: India’s first Pink ball tournament, India Blue vs India Red 2016-17: Rain stops play
India Blue 105/0 in 34.2 overs | Duleep Trophy Live updates: India's first Pink ball tournament, IND Blue vs IND Red: Rain stops play
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 Yuvraj Singh-led India Red managed to beat India Green by a margin of 219 runs in the first match. Kuldeep Yadav and Abhinav Mukund starred for them, with valuable contributions which were instrumental to lead them to a victory. But the limelight as expected, fell on the Pink ball and the Day-Night conditions. Plenty of positives emerged, but as the tournament progresses more details, more opinions might come out. As the second match gets underway at the Shahid Vijay Singh Pathik Stadium in Greater Noida, we’ll bring you all the live updates, stay tuned! READ: Match Report: Abhinav Mukund leads India Red to 219-run win against India Green in Duleep Trophy
Yadav’s 6 for 88, scripted the collapse of the Suresh Raina-led India Green team in the first match of the tournament. He, not only took those wickets, he puzzled the India Green batsmen with his variations as well. Raina’s 90-run knock in the second innings went in vain as his team was bowled out for 277. READ: Pakistan to play day-night Test vs West Indies at Dubai in October 2016
Earlier, Mukund and Sudip Chatterjee had registered centuries to take India Red’s total to 486 in the second innings. Mukund and Chatterjee scored 169 and 114 respectively. Gurkeerat Singh Mann too scored a 82-run knock for the team.
The match lasted exactly 10.2 overs in the final afternoon. First it was Ashok Dinda, who tried an ugly pull shot off a Nathu Singh bouncer to be caught at mid-on. With defeat looming large, Raina upped the ante as he hit a six over mid-wicket and a flurry of boundaries off Anureet Singh and Yadav as he inched towards his century. Raina reached the 90s by dancing down the track and lofting Yadav over long-off but was out off the very next delivery trying to clear mid-off.
The match saw a good crowd attendance too. Despite no seats for the general public, large numbers of localites were seen at the venue on all the four match days. READ: Duleep Trophy 2016-17: Greater Noida’s shot at history as pink ball cricket arrives
Yuvraj’s India Red will be looking to make it two wins out of two. 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, the first match between India Red and India Green was over the moment Pragyan Ojha was taken by Mukund off Akshay Wakhare’s bowling. The Red team got six points for an outright win and look good to reach the final of the tournament. Mukund was awarded Man of the match for scores of 77 and 169.
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.
Squads
India Blue: Gautam Gambhir(c), Mayank Agarwal, Sheldon Jackson, Siddhesh Lad, Dinesh Karthik(w), Parvez Rasool, Karaparambil Monish, Krishna Das, Suryakumar Yadav, Mohit Sharma, Pankaj Singh, Shardul Thakur, Cheteshwar Pujara, Hanuma Vihari, Baba Aparajith
India Red: Abhinav Mukund, Srikar Bharat(w), Sudip Chatterjee, Gurkeerat Singh Mann, Yuvraj Singh(c), Ankush Bains, Akshay Wakhare, Kuldeep Yadav, Nathu Singh, Anureet Singh, Ishwar Pandey, Nitish Rana, Murugan Ashwin, Abhimanyu Mithun, Arun Karthik
(With inputs from PTI)