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

India in 2003/04 For India’s Test side, the 2003/04 season was one of improving fortunes ending up very much on a high note. The programme began with the disappointment of being held to a 0-0 home draw by New Zealand. This outcome may have left the side somewhat daunted at the prospect of four Tests in Australia; but the outcome proved to be a very creditable 1-1 draw. The standout game was the second Test at Adelaide, in which Australia led off with 556 and reduced India to 85-4 in reply. Yet India won. Rahul Dravid (233) and V.V.S.Laxman (148) added 303 for the fifth wicket before an apparently demoralized Australia fell for only 196 at the second attempt (Ajit Agarkar 6-41). This was India’s first Test win in Australia since 1980/81. The drawn series allowed India to retain the Border-Gavaskar Trophy; but the most satisfying performance of the season was still to come as India toured Pakistan and emerged as 2-1 winners largely on the strength of huge contributions by Virender Sehwag (309) and Sachin Tendulkar (194) in the first Test, and Dravid (270) in the third. It was India’s first series win in Pakistan, at the sixth attempt going back to 1954/55. The 2003/04 domestic season in India saw the second edition of the new-look Ranji Trophy, discarding the traditional five (or in the early days, four) geographical zones that had formed the structural basis of the Trophy since its inception. Instead, the twenty-seven sides were divided between fifteen ‘Elite’ teams and twelve ‘Plate’ sides. Only the Elite teams could challenge for the Trophy itself. They were divided into two groups, and the top two from each group qualified for the Ranji semifinals. As for the Plate teams, they were also divided into two groups. The top two from each group contested the Plate semifinals, the winners of which were elevated to next season’s Elite. (They also won the right to contest a largely meaningless Plate final.) The Ranji Trophy may have sported a relatively new look, but some traditions are more durable: even during their famous 15-season winning streak (1958/59 to 1972/73), Mumbai could seldom have appeared so dominant as in their successful defence of the Trophy this season. After steamrollering their way through Elite Group A with three outright wins and four winning draws, they crushed Hyderabad in the semifinal and claimed the final by virtue of a huge first-innings lead over Tamil Nadu. It was Mumbai’s 36th win out of the 70 occasions the Trophy had been contested. Elsewhere, Tamil Nadu had looked altogether less convincing in heading Elite Group B by a whisker ahead of Hyderabad and Karnataka, before progressing on first-innings lead against Railways in the semifinal. In the Plate, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, who had won their respective groups, went on to prevail in the semifinals against group runners-up Orissa and Haryana, and thus secured promotion to the Elite. Maharashtra also had the satisfaction of beating Madhya Pradesh in the Plate final. The Ranji Trophy’s 2002/03 revamp had left the Duleep Trophy somewhat in limbo. The original idea, when the Duleep was founded in 1961/62, was that it would be contested by teams drawn from each Ranji zone so as to offer a higher standard of competition and form a bridge, so to speak, between the Ranji Trophy, containing as it did a substantial number of weaker sides, and the sterner demands of international cricket. But with the zonal system now a thing of the past, at least so far as the Ranji Trophy was concerned, where did that leave the Duleep? 7