India’s prime domestic first-class tournament just concluded a couple o’ days back – The Ranji Trophy. Mumbai clinched the title in a nail-biting final against Karnataka and the winners won the contest at the end by just 6 runs! The Ranji Trophy Super League, as its better known as, is always considered a benchmark for the selection in the Indian team. Though there are other tournaments like the IPL, the domestic one-dayers and so on, but a better performance in the Ranji trophy always is like a waitlist ticket (!) to the Indian dressing room. This time round, alike every year, a couple of new stars have just got into the groove and made their mark – and some of them are rather surprising – given their age as a matter of fact!

Manish Pandey – 20 year old and only Indian centurion in the IPL scored the most runs in the tournament – 882 in 14 innings @ 63.00. His 50-to-100 conversion was excellent as he scored four 50s and four 100s. His strike rate was above par too – 79.74, which is fantastic for first-class cricket. The young lad hailing from North India, plays for Karnataka and is just 14 first-class games old. He was playing his only second Ranji season and earlier did showed his potential in the 2008 ICC U-19 World Cup whenever he got a chance.

This brilliant performance also meant that he wouldn't have to carry out his intention of following his father into the army if he didn't make it as a professional cricketer! Nevertheless, his batting ain’t army type! He bats freely in the middle-order and is an excellent fielder. Watch out for him in the IPL 2010.

Ajinkya Rahane – The Mumbai lad was another youngster to lead the run scoring table. He stood next to Manish Pandey with 809 runs @ 73.54. He scored 3 fifties and same number of hundreds in the tournament with the best being 265*. Rahane has a first-class average of 65.44 in 58 innings. Making his first-class debut in 2007, now, he is a regular in Mumbai XI and bats #3 – that being very crucial. He had scored 1089 runs last season and certainly had his form continue this time round again. The flashy one-down batsman is a handsome bet for any team, be it test, one-day or T20!

Vinay Kumar – 25 year old, R Vinay Kumar, is Karnataka’s leading pace bowler and his stats duly show that. He took just one wicket less than the leading wicket-taker – Abhinav Mukund (Karnataka), but he had a wonderful average of 19.69 over a span of 298.5 overs in 8 matches. He took 46 wickets in all – each coming in 38.9 deliveries. His best innings of 8/32 was the best innings of the tournament and best his best performance in a match of 11/102 was also the best. In all he gave away 3.03 rpo – again a real good figure!

Hence, he is one such pacer that needs to be watched. He has already played 5 Ranji seasons but is internationally uncapped. Believe me or not – he could be the next pace dasher of Indian cricket, if he performs the same in the IPL!

Vikramjeet Singh – A very unfamiliar name amongst Indian players even after being 7 years old in first-class cricket. The Himachal’s medium pacer took 32 wickets in 7 matches. Best part was a valiant average of 18.34 – the best for anybody taking more than 20 wickets and the economy of 2.36. His career average is 22.30 in 46 matches. And hence he can be considered a much uncelebrated cricketer even after gem of career-stats.  The 26 year old has no IPL contracts and has only played for Himachal Pradesh. A lot more can be expected for the pace-maestro!

THE 2009 RANJI XI

As always, I felt like composing a Ranji XI and here I am. The players mentioned above are certainly a part of it, but the whole team is as follows…

Wasim Jaffer (Mumbai): 638 Runs @ 53.16*

Chirag Pathak (Saurashtra): 601 Runs @ 60.10

Ajinkya Rahane (Mumbai): 809 Runs @ 73.54

Parthiv Patel (Gujarat): 727 Runs @ 66.09^

Subramaniam Badrinath (Tamil Nadu): 599 Runs @ 85.57

Manish Pandey (Karnataka): 882 Runs @ 63.00

Ganesh Satish (Karnataka): 639 Runs @ 71.00

Iqbal Abdulla (Mumbai): 32 Wickets @ 27.61

R Vinay Kumar (Karnataka): 46 Wickets @ 19.69

Vikramjeet Singh (Himachal Pradesh): 32 Wickets @ 18.34

Abhinav Mukund (Karnataka): 47 Wickets @ 23.23

*- Captain

^- Wicket-keeper