The fourth round of the 2023/24 Ranji Trophy came to a close on January 29. Here is a summary of how the India hopefuls performed in the latest round of fixtures in India’s premier domestic first-class tournament.
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Cheteshwar Pujara: Pujara continued on in his merry way, scoring 91 against Services. His tally this season now reads 535 runs from six innings, second only to Narayan Jagadeesan. With India struggling for experienced batting options in the ongoing series against England, Pujara is doing everything he can to help his case.
Hanuma Vihari: Vihari stacked up his first hundred of the season, scoring a massive 183 off 347 balls against Chhattisgarh. He had also scored a fifty in the second innings of Andhra’s previous match against Assam.
Mayank Agarwal: The Karnataka captain scored 51 in the first innings against Tripura and 17 in the second, leading his team to a close victory by 29 runs. Having scored hundreds in each of the last two games, the discarded India opener is continuing his good run of form in the 2023-24 Ranji Trophy.
Jaydev Unadkat: The left-arm seamer did not have a great outing against Services. In a game where only two innings were played, Unadkat bowled 29 overs for one wicket and was run out for a duck.
Ajinkya Rahane: The former India vice-captain’s wretched run of form continued as he was out for a 29-ball eight in the first innings against UP. The Mumbai captain demoted himself to No.7 in the second innings but was run out for nine. From five innings in this season of the Ranji Trophy, he has managed just 33 runs.
Umesh Yadav: The discarded India seamer took 2-48 from 12 overs in the first innings against Jharkhand, before returning figures of 4-43 in the second to help Vidarbha to a massive 308-run victory.
Bhuvneshwar Kumar: Bhuvneshwar took five wickets in the match against Mumbai, two in the first innings, three in the second. This is after registering a career best eight-for in his first game of the season against Bengal two weeks back.
Avesh Khan: Released from the India Test squad to play for Madhya Pradesh, Avesh bowled just ten overs across two innings against Puducherry, picking one wicket in the game.
Navdeep Saini: The Delhi seamer took 4-57 in the only innings he bowled against Uttarakhand following up his 2-118 across the two innings in the four-day match against the England Lions.
Khaleel Ahmed: The left-arm seamer from Rajasthan who last made an international appearance in 2019, has been in good form this season. He picked up 4-40 in the first innings against Manipur and bowled a miserly spell of 1-28 from 15 overs in the second. Khaleel had also picked up a four-for in the previous match against Maharashtra.
