First-Class Matches India 2003/04 and 2004/05

India in 2004/05 After the splendid drawn rubber in Australia in 2003/04 the return visit was eagerly anticipated. But in the event, Australia overcame Indian conditions and memories of their dramatic defeat on their previous visit in 2000/01, as well as the loss of their captain Ricky Ponting for the first three Tests, and chalked up a convincing 2-1 victory. The winning margin was more comfortable than the scoreline suggests, for India’s sole win came on a spinner’s paradise in the fourth and final Test when the rubber was already lost. Earlier, Australia had won the first and third Tests by the huge margins of 217 and 342 runs. And although India could fairly claim to have made the running in the second Test, Australia had fought back and a home win was by no means assured before the monsoon made the question academic by washing out the last day. So it was that Australia won their first rubber in India since Bill Lawry led them to victory back in 1969/70. The visit by Australia was followed by a two-Test home rubber against South Africa, also offering formidable opposition on paper – but not, it transpired, on Indian pitches. In the first Test, on the deadest of surfaces, neither side could make headway. But in the second, India overcame stout resistance from Jacques Kallis and were spun to victory by Harbhajan Singh’s 7-87 in the second innings. India’s next Test assignment, and the side’s only games away from home in 2004/05, came in the form of two Tests in Bangladesh, both won by predictably handsome margins. At the end of the season, Pakistan returned the previous season’s visit and a fascinating rubber ended in a 1-1 draw, an outcome that was probably more disappointing to the home side because they had, after all, won in Pakistan a year previously; moreover, they had won the second Test comfortably (with twin hundreds for captain Rahul Dravid) after the first had been drawn. The third, too, bore all the hallmarks of another high-scoring draw until India unexpectedly allowed themselves to be dismissed for 214 on the final day. Refreshingly, the structure of the domestic season was unchanged from the previous year. In marked contrast to 2002/03 and 2003/04, however, when the Ranji Trophy had, as so often, been claimed by Mumbai, the 2004/05 championship was won by a team at the opposite end of the scale in terms of wealth and glamour. With no proper home ground of its own, and with the barest minimum of resources to pay for travel and equipment, Railways secured the famous Trophy for the second time in four years. No one would have foreseen such an outcome at the end of the Group stage. Railways had finished a distant second in Elite Group A, far behind runaway winners Mumbai and qualifying for the final only by virtue of achieving two outright wins against one each for Delhi and Gujarat, who also finished on 12 points. In Elite Group B, by contrast, the top four sides were separated by only two points, with Hyderabad and Punjab progressing to the semi-finals. And, of course, what matters in the Ranji Trophy is coming good at the knockout stage. For once, Mumbai failed to achieve this: dismissal for only 168 in their semi-final against Punjab cost them a match that they had dominated to this point. Meanwhile, the other semi-final saw Railways prevail against Hyderabad in a low-scoring encounter. And so it was that Punjab and Railways, two sides with only a single Trophy apiece (in 1992/93 and 2001/02 respectively) and merely the runners-up in their Elite Groups, faced each other at Mohali in the 2004/05 final. The game may well have been decided when the Punjab captain, Pankaj Dharmani, on winning the toss, elected to field. Railways responded with a very solid 355 and Punjab’s inability to equal this total, despite Dharmani’s 115, gave Railways the opportunity to bat Punjab out of the game and claim the Trophy on first-innings lead. 111