2017/18 Ranji Trophy: 5 players who failed to set the stage on fire

After 84 matches and 52 days, the league stage of the 2017-18 Ranji Trophy came to an end with the top two teams from each group making it to the quarter-finals.

In spite of playing out of their skins, few teams found themselves crashing out of the tournament by the narrowest of margins. Gujarat collected the most number of points among all the eight teams with 34 points from six games while Tripura managed to get the fewest points from the group stage with just two in six matches.

Few players produced some extraordinary performances. Mayank Agarwal, R Samarth, Faiz Fazal, Sanjay Ramaswamy, Anmolpreet Singh etc. made a strong case for themselves with the bat while the likes of K Gowtham, Jalaj Saxena, Dharmendrasinh Jadeja, Piyush Chawla etc. starred with the ball.

However, there are few players who failed to deliver in this year's competition. Let us take a look at five players who failed to set the 2017-18 Ranji Trophy on fire.

Manan Vohra

Manan Vohra established a name for himself with his blitz for Kings XI Punjab in the IPL. The right-handed opener showed a lot of promise very early in his career and was one of two names retained by the franchise ahead of the 2014 IPL.

Though his T20 numbers are good for a top-order batsman, his average of 31 in the first-class format is something that has not done justice to the potential he has. In the ongoing season, Manan managed to score 62 runs in five innings (four matches) at an average of 12.4. Out of the 62, he scored 51 runs in one innings and 11 in the remaining four.

He was eventually dropped from the side after under-19 opener Shubman Gill returned from injury.

Mohammad Kaif

Exactly a decade ago, Mohammad Kaif was one of India's stalwarts in the middle order in the limited-overs side. But, unfortunately for him, he was never the same after 2006 as he lost his place in the Indian side, made a switch from Uttar Pradesh to Andhra and now is playing for Chhattisgarh.

Having a veteran like Kaif in the team should, on paper, have been a massive boost for Chhattisgarh, who made their Ranji Trophy debut last season. But, the 37-year-old is not helping their cause. In the 2017-18 Ranji season, Kaif managed to score just 136 runs in seven innings (four matches) at an average of just less than 20, numbers that are below-par for someone who served the national team for years.

Kaif played just four out of the six matches for Chhattisgarh this season and the reason for his absence in the last two matches is not known.

Pragyan Ojha

Not long ago, Pragyan Ojha and R Ashwin were India's spin twins in Test matches. Things were going in the right direction until the slow left-armer was caught for an illegal bowling action. The moment he changed his bowling action, he lost his rhythm and became less effective.

Ahead of the start of this Ranji Trophy season, Ojha's participation in the tournament was under the cloud as he was pushing for a move to Hyderabad from Bengal and Sourav Ganguly was reluctant to give him the green light for the switch.

The switch finally happened though and Ojha was back where his career took off, Hyderabad.

His comeback didn't go exactly as he would have liked as the discarded Indian pacer took just four wickets in five innings at an average of 71 and a strike-rate of 107 balls per wicket. Adding to this, his economy of 4 runs per over is the highest for any Hyderabad bowler who bowled at least 20 overs in the competition, which means he failed to keep the scoring rate down and at the same time, didn't manage to take wickets.

Abhinav Mukund

Earlier this year, Tamil Nadu opener Abhinav Mukund was recalled into the Indian team after a gap of six years but his stint in the side was short-lived as he was given just two matches before being dropped unluckily, especially after scoring 81 in his last innings for the country.

To make a case for himself, Abhinav took part in the Ranji Trophy, where he was prolific in the past having consistently scored over 750 runs in a season. But, unfortunately, his stint with Tamil Nadu this season didn't go as he would have hoped for as the left-hander managed to score just 247 runs in nine innings at an average of 30, numbers that are not good for a player of Abhinav's calibre. His failure is one of the reasons for TN's downfall in the tournament.

With his competitors scoring a lot of runs in the tournament, Mukund's failure would have definitely sent him down the pecking order.

Suresh Raina

Suresh Raina has posted more videos of him training on Instagram and Twitter than the runs he has scored in this Ranji Trophy. This is something that did the rounds on social media after the southpaw's dismal performance for Uttar Pradesh this season.

Raina, who last played an ODI for India in 2015, is trying to make a comeback to the Indian side and if the reports are to be believed, he failed his YoYo Test. In reality, there is no place for the southpaw in the Indian team and his performances in the Ranji Trophy didn't help his cause.

In the nine innings he played in the tournament, he managed to score just 105 runs at an average of less than 11.66 with his highest score being just 33, numbers that don't warrant a frontline batsman a place in his state side, let alone the national side.