Patidar’s blitz

Madhya Pradesh conceded a 132-run lead against Haryana at Indore. They saved the match easily, but the highlight of the fourth day was Rajat Patidar’s 68-ball hundred, the fifth-fastest in Ranji Trophy history. Patidar eventually took only 97 balls to reach his 150, and fell for a 102-ball 159.

At that point, it was not impossible for him to break Tanmay Agarwal’s Ranji Trophy record for the fastest Ranji Trophy double hundred, off 119 balls. Barring Agarwal and Ravi Shastri (123), no Indian has hit a double hundred in fewer than 143 balls.

Harshit celebrates Test call-up

It has been quite a week for Harshit Rana of Delhi, who was called up for India’s squad for the Test series in Australia and has reportedly been called to Mumbai for the third Test against New Zealand. At Delhi, Rana first claimed 5-80 in Assam’s innings of 330, then smashed 59 in 78 balls to secure a 124-run lead for his team. Still not done, he took 2-61 to help bowl out Assam for 182, and the Delhi openers got the runs without fuss.

A star for the Kolkata Knight Riders for some time now, Rana has 43 first-class wickets at 24, but perhaps as crucially for a country where very few fast bowlers can bat, has a first-class batting average of 42.63.

Chopra’s Bradmanesque run

In 2023-24, Agni Dev Chopra of Mizoram had started his first-class career with a hundred in each of his first four matches, a world record. He went three matches without a hundred since then (though he hit three fifties and a forty), but followed that with 110 and 238 not out against Arunachal Pradesh and now 218 against Manipur.

After nine matches and 17 innings, Chopra’s career stands at 1,585 runs at 99.06 with eight hundreds and four fifties. He is not far behind Bill Ponsford’s first-class record of 1,667 runs, the most after 17 innings, and can break Ponsford’s record of 1,673 after 18.

Milestones for domestic giants

Now almost 40, Paras Dogra had made his first-class debut in 2001-02, before Yashasvi Jaiswal was born. Dogra moved from Himachal Pradesh to Puducherry before settling at Jammu & Kashmir, who thrashed Services by an innings at Srinagar. Dogra made 28, but that was enough to take him past Amol Muzumdar’s 9,202 runs in the Ranji Trophy.

In the history of the tournament, only Wasim Jaffer (12,038) has more runs than Dogra’s 9,215. In case you are wondering what is next for him, he needs only one ton to draw level with Ajay Sharma’s 31. Only Jaffer (40) has more.

Against Bengal at Kolkata, Jalaj Saxena hit 84 to help Kerala declare on 356-9. Saxena reached 6,000 runs in Ranji Trophy (he now has 6,031), the first to achieve this with 300 wickets under his belt. In the 6,000-club, only Vijay Hazare (291) and Sanjay Bangar (233) have 200 wickets.

Saxena later trapped Sudip Chatterjee leg-before to move on to 396 wickets, so an even more elite double awaits him.

Sakib arrives

Part of the Kolkata Knight Riders squad in 2024, fast bowler Sakib Hussain debuted for Bihar against Karnataka at Patna. Called first-change to bowl the fifth over, he immediately had Sujay Sateri caught by Vaibhav Suryavanshi. He became the second Bihar bowler to take a wicket with his first ball in first-class cricket, after Anuj Raj, who got Kishan Lyngdoh of Meghalaya at Shillong in 2022-23.

Sakib also got Nikin Jose in his third over, but finished with 11-0-85-2 as Karnataka plundered runs at 5.62 and beat the clock to win by eight wickets on the final day.

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