Ranji Trophy Highlights, Delhi vs Railways: Delhi with dominant innings and 19 run victory on Virat Kohli's return

Ranji Trophy Highlights, Delhi vs Railways: Virat Kohli's return to the Delhi team was a triumphant one, even though he failed to make too much of an impact with the bat in hand. Throngs of fans appeared at the Arun Jaitley Stadium to watch the local hero's return, and although they didn't get exactly what they wanted, Delhi's bowlers and the remainder of the team put on an excellent show to dominate Railways and complete an innings an 19-run victory. Shivam Sharma's five-fer and Ayush Badoni's 99 were key performances, but the player of the match was awarded to Sumit Mathur for a key all-round performance....Read More

The Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi was forced to open up all the stands in the stadium after the crush of supporters who turned up to watch Virat Kohli represent Delhi for the first time in more than 12 years, having originally planned to keep certain sections of the stadium open for the public. Such was the hype and reception for Kohli, Delhi’s favourite son and greatest cricketing export. The morning started with the stadium packed, full of energy and expectation, excited to watch Kohli hit the crease and potentially find his mojo in front of a rabid home crowd.

Instead, the stadium was nearly empty only a couple of hours in. Kohli had come in, looked circumspect, hit one terrific straight drive, and then bowled through the gate by an elated Himanshu Sangwan, whose name went from a relative unknown to one cricket fans won’t soon forget. The lasting image of the day was Kohli’s off-stump cartwheeling backwards, and the great man just looking down at his shoes, dejected.

The seventh and final round of the 2024-25 Ranji Trophy group stages is hallways through, with day two setting up a fascinating pair of days over the weekend. One result came in as Kerala booked their spots in the quarterfinal with an innings victory over Bihar, but there are still plenty of spots being fought for. Mumbai look set to qualify despite their tough loss against Jammu and Kashmir last week, as a mammoth batting performance helped out by a remarkable 84(42) from the bat of on-fire Shardul Thakur against Meghalaya, combined with Baroda being on the ropes, means they will likely pull through.

Saurashtra also look to have done enough to keep their qualification prospects safe against Assam, with Chandigarh not in a great position to win their match, while Tamil Nadu look set to complete the formalities in that group as well. These results would make Railways vs Delhi irrelevant, outside of a battle for pride. Gujarat and Himachal hangs in the balance in what is essentially a playoff game, while Karnataka need a big win against Haryana to qualify ahead of them but seem to be well-matched in that contest.

Lastly, a good day for the top-scorers in the Ranji Trophy as well, as Shubham Sharma of Madhya Pradesh struck a glorious double-century, but couldn’t quite catch up with Tanmay Agarwal of Hyderabad as he struck a solid century of his own. Both excellent batters have surpassed the 900-mark on the season, with Tanmay holding onto a narrow seven-run lead in the overall race for run leader.

The focus, nevertheless, will still be on Virat Kohli. It would be a surprise if he is needed to bat on day three, but fans will still want to see him score some kind of runs. For that sake alone, fans might hope for Railways to put up a fight, and make this match a contest heading into final day’s play.

Click here to read article