NEWS
SCHEDULES
COLUMNS
PREVIOUS TOURS
OTHER SPORTS
STATISTICS
INTERVIEWS
SLIDE SHOW
ARCHIVES

Bombay romp into 38th Ranji final

Riz Ahmed

Thirty-three time champions Bombay romped into the final of the Ranji Trophy cricket championship -- for the 38th time in 67 editions -- after defeating Tamil Nadu by eight wickets in the semi-final at the Wankhede stadium, Bombay, on Saturday.

Resuming at 104 and requiring just 63 runs for victory, the hosts took just 52 minutes in the morning to complete the formalities.

The lone casualty of the day was skipper Sameer Dighe (73: 108b, 10x4), who was caught at mid-off off Sadagoppan Ramesh after putting on 105 runs for the second wicket with southpaw Jatin Paranjape (55: 93b, 7x4, 2x6).

Paranjape, who brought up his half-century with a huge six off Sadagoppan Ramesh, hit the winning boundary, lofting the same bowler down the ground.

The last time Bombay made it to the final of the national championship was in 1996-97. Then, the Sanjay Manjrekar-led side defeated Delhi -- captained by Ajay Sharma -- in the experimental day/night final at Gwalior to win the title for the 33rd time. Sachin Tendulkar returned unbeaten on 13.

The Bombay selectors announced that the team for the final, to be played in Bombay, will be unchanged. Sameer Dighe will lead the side and Amol Muzumdar will be his deputy with the other members of the side being Sachin Tendulkar, Vinod Kambli, Wasim Jaffer, Jatin Paranjpe, Ajit Agarkar, Santosh Saxena, Abey Kuruvilla, Paras Mhambrey, Rajesh Pawar, Nilesh Kulkarni, Ramesh Powar, Amit Dani, Sriram Kannan and Amit Pagnis.

Meanwhile match-referee G D Bapat of Vidharba fined both the teams 30 per cent of their match fees for the slow over rate after play was extended by over and hour on all the four days.

Tamil Nadu skipper Robin Singh, however, defended his bowlers saying the conditions were tough for the bowlers.

"Even while batting we had to keep changing gloves because they used to get drenched with sweat,'' said Robin Singh.

Scoreboard

Tamil Nadu (1st innings): 485
Bombay (1st innings): 490
Tamil Nadu (2nd innings): 171
Bombay (2nd innings; overnight 104 for 1):
Sameer Dighe c Kumaran b Ramesh 73
Wawsim Jaffer c Ramesh b Kapoor 15
Jatin Paranjpe not out 55
Sachin Tendulkar not out 13.
Extras (b-5, lb-4, nb-4) 13.
Total (for two wickets, 44.4 overs, 174 mins) 169.
Fall of wickets: 1-39, 2-144.
Bowling: T Kumaran 3-0-10-0; S Mahesh 4-3-6-0; DJ Gokulakrishnan 2-1-2-0; A Kapoor 8-1-46-1 (4nb); S Sriram 13-1-43-0; H Badani 5-0-21-0; S Ramesh 5.4-0-28-1; Robin Singh 4-0-4-0.

Day 4