Round-up of the fourth day of the sixth round matches of the 2006-07 Ranji Trophy Super League

Cricinfo staff05-Jan-2007
Scorecard
Syed Sahabuddin’s valiant 95 went in vain as Andhra fell agonisingly short of victory by 4 runs and had to settle for a draw, yielding two first-innings points in the bargain to Delhi. Delhi declared after Mithun Manhas reached his hundred, setting a target of 333.Andhra had to go for an outright win (a draw would leave them with no points anyway) and they started off at a fair clip, reaching 100 in 24 overs but lost five wickets in the bargain. Sahabuddin walked into a semi-crisis at 104 for 5 and soon saw his side slipping to 144 for 6. Delhi were overwhelming favourites at that point. But Sahabuddin was writing a script of his own – 94 runs came in 18 overs as he and the allrounder Mohammed Faiq counterattacked but Ishant Sharma, the star for Delhi, removed Faiq. A run later, another wicket went down and Andhra were struggling at 239 for 8, still 90 runs adrift of the target.Sahabuddin found an able ally in Doddapaneni Kalyankrishna and the duo added 84 in nearly 16 overs. Sahabuddin hogged the strike and in particular, against Ishant. Two overs were left, and 10 runs to get. Then, it happened. Amit Bhandari took out Sahabuddin and the game hung on a knife’s edge. Five runs came in the penultimate over, leaving only four to get off the last over and Ishant rose to the occasion and kept Kalyankrishna scoreless for the first five deliveries. It came down to four of the last ball but he could manage just a run and Ishant had taken Delhi home. Only just.
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Powered by an unbeaten fifty from Deep Dasgupta, Bengal achieved a four-wicket win against Hyderabad. Dasgupta took control after Bengal, needing 114 to win on the last day, lost two wickets quickly and, were wobbling at 97 for 4. He stitched together 63 valuable runs in 33.1 overs with Saurasish Lahiri (29) before Reddy trapped Lahiri. One more wicket fell but Dasgupta combined with Rohan Gavaskar to take the visitors home. Gavaskar brought up the win with a boundary against Reddy.
Scorecard
Karnataka spun out Tamil Nadu for 246 before rattling off the 28 runs required to achieve a resounding 10-wickets victory, and with it a bonus point, in Bangalore.Resuming on the overnight score of 130 for 3, the overnight pair of Subramaniam Badrinath and Hemang Badani added 31 runs when Joshi removed Badrinath. 53 runs later, Badani fell, opening the door for the spinners to crash through. Chandrasekhar Raghu, the offspinner, and Sunil Joshi grabbed two more, K Appanna picked one as Tamil Nadu crashed from 212 for 5 to be dismissed for 246. Robin Uthappa walloped a 13-ball 23 to reach the paltry target in under four overs.
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Mumbai gave themselves a good chance of entering the semi-finals with an emphatic win, with a bonus point to boot, against Rajasthan at Mumbai. Resuming at the overnight score of 259 for 7, Rajasthan folded up after adding 39 runs. Ajay Jadeja reached his fifty but that was the only consolation for the visitors. After a disastrous start to the season, Mumbai have won two games in a row and play Maharashtra at Nasik from January 10. Sachin Tendulkar and Zaheer Khan are expected to bolster the run up.
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Gujarat drew the game with Maharashtra but could not escape relegation. This is the last game of the season and even though, they are level on points with Rajasthan, they have fewer wins and hence, slip to Plate group. Sridharan Sriram notched up his second hundred of the season to lift Maharashtra, overnight on 296 for 4, to a massive 450. Satyajit Satbhai gave him support with a brisk 47-ball 38. Gujarat reached 73 for 1 by close, bringing the curtains down on a poor season.Saurashtra 268 and 184 for 3 (Jogiyani 92) beat Haryana 308 and 143 by 7 wickets
Scorecard
Set a target of 184, Saurashtra rode on an attacking 92 from Sagar Jogiyani to romp home to a seven-wicket win at Rajkot. Earlier, Joginder Sharma hit an unbeaten 38 to stretch Haryana’s total from an overnight 82 for 7 to 143. But what could have been a tricky target turned out to be a cakewalk as Jogiyani came out attacking. His knock was studded with 18 fours and he got able support from Prashant Joshi and Shitanshu Kotak.