J&K take historic win over Mumbai

Jammu & Kashmir shocked domestic heavyweights Mumbai with a historic four-wicket win by chasing down 237 on the last day at the Wankhede Stadium. J&K needed 179 runs when the fourth day. Khajuria and Ian Dev Singh stitched a 52-run stand to take them past 100. Ian Dev scored a brisk 30 off 25 with four fours before Dabholkar struck. Khajuria continued to steer the ship and brought the required runs within 70 after bringing up his fifty. 

Khajuria was named Man of the Match for his fifty in second innings and 107 in the first.

Jammu & Kashmir are the 12th teams to beat Mumbai in 81 seasons of Ranji Trophy. Mumbai have now lost for the 23rd time in 465 games. Others to beat Mumbai: Baroda (4), Maharashtra (3), Haryana, Gujarat, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh (2), Holkar, Nawanagar, Delhi, Hyderabad, Karnataka (1).

scores: Mumbai 236 & 254 lost to J&K 254 & 237/6 (Shubham Khajuria 78, Ian Chauhan 30, Parveez Rasool 32, Hardeep Singh 41*; Vishal Dhabolkar 2/67) by four wickets.

Deodhar Trophy 2014-15: Full schedule

Apart from the Vijay Hazare trophy, The Deodhar trophy is another 50-over competition that could prove to be important for a lot of players. Unlike the Vijay Hazare trophy, this is a 5 team competition, each team representing their particular zone. 

Deodhar Trophy schedule

Date	Match Details	Venue
November 29th 2014	Quarter Final- Central Zone vs South Zone	TBA
November 30th 2014	First Semi-Final- East Zone vs North Zone	TBA
December 1st 2014	Second Semi-Final- TBC vs West Zone	TBA
December 3rd 2014	Final- TBC vs TBC

Former Gujarat captain Mukund Parmar to coach Andhra

Former Gujarat captain Mukund Parmar has been appointed as the lead coach of Andhra for the 2014-15 domestic season. Parmar played 83 first-class matches for Gujarat, scoring 6674 runs with 20 centuries and 30 fifties at an average of 49.80. 

He will replace R Sridhar, the former Hyderabad spinner, who left Andhra to join the Indian support team as a fielding coach.

Parmar, who has completed an NCA Level C course, coached India Under-23s to the Asian Cricket Council Emerging Teams Cup title in 2013, with a win over Pakistan Under-23s in the final. During the 2012-13 season, Parmar served as the head coach of Gujarat and he led the team to victory in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, the domestic T20 competition. 

Parmar's main task will be to lift the performance of a team which endured a poor 2013-14 domestic season. Andhra finished seventh in the weakest group of the Ranji Trophy, and the results were similarly poor in the limited-overs tournaments. They came last in the South Zone group of the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy and failed to qualify for the Super League. In the Vijay Hazare Trophy, they finished third in their group, behind Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. 

Sachin Tendulkar's Autobiography to Release on November 6

The book titled 'Playing It My Way' will be published worldwide by Hodder & Stoughton & by Hachette India in the Indian sub-continet.

The book, titled 'Playing It My Way', will be published worldwide by Hodder and Stoughton and by Hachette India in the Indian sub-continent.

The book has been co-authored by renowned cricket historian and media personality Boria Majumdar.

"I knew that agreeing to write my story would need me to be completely honest, as that's the way I have always played the game. It would require talking about a number of aspects I have not shared in public before," said Tendulkar in a press release issued by the publishers.

"So here I am, at the end of my final innings, having taken that last walk back to the pavilion, ready to recount as many incidents as I can remember since first picking up a cricket bat as a child in Mumbai thirty-five years ago," Tendulkar added.

"My autobiography will be available on Nov 6th... Excited," Tendulkar tweeted.

The front cover of the book shows Tendulkar raising his bat while walking away from the field one last time after his knock of 74 against the West Indies at the Wankhede Stadium on November 15.

Venues for WI Tour of India Announced

India-WI to play five ODIs, one T20I and three Tests from Oct 8-Nov 19

India will play the West Indies in five ODIs, one T20 International and three Tests, in October-November 2014.  

The match-schedule is as follows:

ODI SERIES

8 Oct - Kochi
11 Oct - Vishakhapatnam
14 Oct - Cuttack
17 Oct - Kolkata
20 Oct - Dharamshala

T20 INTERNATIONAL

22 Oct - Delhi

TEST SERIES

30 Oct – 3 Nov - Hyderabad
7 Nov – 11 Nov - Bengaluru
15 Nov – 19 Nov - Ahmedabad

Indian Domestic Cricket fixtures 2014-15

The domestic season will kick off with the zonal first-class tournament, the Duleep Trophy, which will be played from October 15 to November 3, while the zonal one-dayers - the Deodhar Trophy - will be played from November 7 to 14. The Vijay Hazare Trophy, the all-India one-day knockouts, will be staged from November 19 to 25.

The Ranji Trophy, which used to begin in the last week of October ever since the multi-tiered system was introduced, will now start on December 7. The Ranji final will be from March 8 to 12, which will effectively clash with the 2015 World Cup.

Duleep Trophy- October 15 to November 3 
Zonal One-day leagues- November 7 to 14 
Vijay Hazare Trophy: November 19 to 25 

Deodhar Trophy: November 29 to December 3

Group A- Karnataka, Bengal, Mumbai, Railways, UPCA, Baroda, Tamil Nadu, Jammu and Kashmir, Madhya Pradesh
Group B - Maharashtra, Punjab, Gujarat, Saurashtra, Rajasthan, Delhi, Vidarbha, Haryana, Odisha
Group C - Goa, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Hyderabad, Andhra, Assam, Tripura, Jharkhand, Services

Ranji Trophy semis: February 25 to March 1
Ranji Trophy quarters: February 15 to 19
Ranji Trophy Final: March 8 to 12 
Irani Cup: March 17 to 21 
Zonal Twenty20 leagues: March 25 to 28
Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy: April 1 to 7

West Indies Tour of India: BCCI Announces Venues for Tests, ODIs and T20I

West Indies will play three Tests, Five ODIs & One T20 in india later this year.

The BCCI Tours and Fixtures Committee has shortlisted Bangalore, Ahmedabad and Hyderabad for India's three-Test series against the West Indies during October and November this year.
The committee has allotted the five ODIs to Kolkata, Visakhapatnam, Cuttack, Dharamsala and Kochi while Delhi's Feroz Shah Kotla will be hosting its first ever T20 International.

The exact date-wise match-schedule will be finalised later on the basis of logistics. As per media reports Ranchi was being dubbed as a possible venue for a Test match but a senior BCCI official said that there was no discussion on the venue. "Yes, Ranchi has got the ICC nod and BCCI needs to ratify it as a Test centre during a working committee meeting.
But above everything, Ranchi needs to come into the rotation policy system which is in work. How could we have allotted Ranchi a match when there are other centres with valid claims of hosting a Test as per rotation policy," the source told PTI.

Eden Gardens and Dharamsala hosted their last one-dayers in December 2012 (vs Pakistan) and January 2013 (vs England) respectively. For Kotla, it will be the first T20 International that the ground will host, having staged its first ODI back in 1982. Ravi Jain, BCCI's deputy head of media committee and media convenor of DDCA, said that the association is ready to host the match. "We will leave no stone unturned to make this T20 International a grand success," Jain said

Raj Singh Dungarpur was More Than A Father Figure, Says Sachin Tendulkar

Sachin Tendulkar remembered former BCCI President Raj Singh Dungarpur's big role in shaping up his cricket career.

"Rajbhai has played an immense role in making me the cricketer that I am and giving me the opportunities that I had in my life," sachin said at the book launch 'Raj Singh Dungarpur A Tribute'.


Dungarpur was BCCI's president for three years from 1996, served as the chairman of the national selection committee (including when Tendulkar was first picked in the Indian team in 1989), and was also the Indian team manager on several tours, including the victorious trip to England in 1986.

It was Dungarpur who was instrumental in amending the rules of the CCI to allow Tendulkar use its dressing room as a 14-year-old, making things smooth for the champion batsman very early in his glittering career."I was only 13 years old and CCI was playing against Shivaji Park youngsters and I scored some runs. Under 18 were not allowed to be in the dressing room.

(Pic Source: PTI/ANI)

"I didn't have deep pockets and Rajbhai was again instrumental in finding a sponsor for me. He said in his own style 'you should play cricket and leave the rest to me'. With that kind of support and encouragement, all you want to do is score as many runs as possible," Tendulkar said.

It's official! IPL 7 final to stay in Bangalore

Mumbai Cricket Association's promise to comply with all the conditions notwithstanding, the Indian Premier League's Governing Council has decided that the June 1 final of the T20 tournament would be held in Bangalore as announced earlier. 

"The GC had a conference call last night and after a lot of deliberation among the members it was unanimously decided to stick to our earlier decision, that is to play the final in Bangalore," BCCI secretary Sanjay Patel told PTI from Baroda yesterday morning. 



"One of the main reasons is we don't have time till Monday (tomorrow) or Tuesday as a lot of preparations are needed to be done," said Patel. Other BCCI sources indicated that though MCA had written to the IPL GC that it would meet all the demands, a written permission from Mumbai police to allow bursting of firecrackers past 10 pm was not provided. 

MCA secretary Nitin Dalal told PTI that this permission would have been obtained in the coming week. "We had accepted all the demands. (Sharad) Pawar saheb would have got this permission this week," said Dalal, who said he was not aware of the IPL GC's decision to keep the final in Bangalore. 

MCA vice-president Ravi Savant had said that MCA had accepted all the 14 demands put forward by the IPL's governing council to stage the match. "We have decided to accept all the conditions because the MCA president (Sharad Pawar) desired that the match should be played in Mumbai only," Savant had said.