ACS Overseas First-Class Annual 2020

95 India in 2019/20 The start of the 2019/20 season saw India at the top of the both the ICC Test rankings and the World Test Championship table, and the side embarked on its Test programme with an evident determination to maintain both positions. The first challenge was three home Tests against potentially dangerous opposition in the form of South Africa; but the visitors were simply swatted aside. Winning the toss in the first Test, India started with an opening stand of 317 and never looked back. Despite a spirited first-innings reply, South Africa went down by over 200 runs and this proved to be their best result of the rubber as in the remaining two Tests they were completely unable to contain the rampant home batsmen and India chalked up two wins by an innings. And if opponents like this could be so summarily dismissed, it was no surprise when the two-Test home rubber against Bangladesh that immediately followed resulted in two more innings victories. Nemesis, as it turned out, was to be found in New Zealand. As so often before, India were unable to replicate their home form outside Asia; after the run-fests at home, not one Indian batsman could reach sixty and both Tests resulted in convincing victories for the Kiwis. And so it was that at the end of the 2020 season India found themselves edged down to third place in the ICC rankings, although they could take comfort from the narrowness of the margins separating them from Australia in first place and New Zealand in second, as well as from the retention of top place in the WTC table. After their extensive programme in 2018/19, in 2019/20 India A undertook only four engagements, two at home and two away against the A sides of South Africa and New Zealand respectively, both sets of matches preceding the corresponding rubbers between the senior Test sides. Of the four games, only the first against South Africa reached a result, a seven-wicket win for India A; the other three were dominated by the bat and never came near a result. India’s domestic first-class season began with the Duleep Trophy, played between three select sides arbitrarily labelled Blue, Green and Red. Poor weather and good batting combined to ensure that the three matches at the league stage were all drawn, but in the final India Red secured an easy win over Green. In Group A of the Ranji Trophy Vidarbha, champions in the last two seasons, got off to a fine start with two wins and two draws; but in the fifth match Delhi successfully chased a tough fourth- innings target and from that point, Vidarbha never looked like claiming another win and they finished the league stage in sixth place. Meanwhile it was the 2016/17 champions Gujarat that headed Group A with five wins from its eight matches, followed by Bengal and Andhra, who also qualified from the Group. Hyderabad found themselves very much the whipping-boys; their only win came against next-to-bottom Kerala. These two Group A sides had worse records than anyone in Group B so they took the two relegation places. Qualification from Group B, meanwhile, was claimed by Karnataka, on top with a solid record of four wins and no defeats, and last year’s beaten finalists Saurashtra, who could claim only three outright victories but demonstrated the value of the winning draw. 41-time Trophy-winners Mumbai suffered another season of mediocrity as they beat Baroda handsomely in the first match but were never at the races thereafter. Group C was led by Jammu and Kashmir, with six wins and only one defeat from their nine matches; Orissa were runners-up and these two sides progressed to the knockouts besides being promoted. Meanwhile the gulf separating the Plate from the Elite groups was emphasized by the contrasting experiences of the teams promoted to and relegated from Group C. The winners of the 2018/19 Plate, Uttarakhand, suffered a dismal season in Group C, their record of seven defeats and two losing draws resulting, inevitably, in a prompt return whence they came. Meanwhile Goa, bottom of Group C in 2018/19, enjoyed an excellent season in the Plate and just held off Puducherry to claim the sole quarterfinal and promotion slot. New boys Chandigarh, whose addition brought the Plate to ten teams this season, finished very respectably in third place.