Ranji Trophy: Congrats Mumbai!

By Gaurang
February 6 2007

To win the National Championship 37 times out of the 72 times it has been contested is phenomenal dominance of a national sports competition. New York Yankees, eat your hearts out!

The 37 wins include a streak of 15 years between 1958-59 and 1972-73 when Mumbai won the Ranji Trophy each and every year. Dilip Sardesai is just one of several Mumbai players whose entire career was spent in a Champion side.

Since the late 1970s though it has not been as easy for Mumbai, as other centers of excellence such as Karnataka, Delhi and Punjab among others, have come up and begun to challenge their predominance. This win will also be extra-special for Mumbai because it was achieved from a position of almost total hopelessness. Under new coach Pravin Amre, an ex-Mumbai player himself, the team had zero points from its first three matches of the season, and people began talking about the possibility of that most ignominious of fates, relegation to the Plate Division, as a real possibility for the first time Mumbai cricket’s illustrious history.

The unfancied coach and captain, Praveen Amre and Amol Mazumdar then had to dig deep. They unearthed a couple of players of serious talent, but even bigger hearts, and brought them into the team. Abhishek Nayar for instance only played for Mumbai after the first three games, and he had a huge impact on the team, leading the team in both batting and bowling averages in his rookie season. Another such was Hiken Shah who batted well in the middle order. The un-fancied veterans also did their job, including the Captain Amol Mazumdar himself as well as the stalwart Nilesh Kulkarni who was the leading wicket taker for Mumbai. The unheralded wicketkeeper Vinayak Samant also played a crucial knock at a key moment to help the team out.

With the fresh youngsters and grizzled veterans all pulling together, Mumbai inflicted back to back innings defeats on Gujarat and Rajasthan to go from the bottom of the table to having 10 points including a bonus point from each game, heading into the final games of the season.

Mumbai next faced a huge challenge in the semi-Final match versus Baroda, played in Baroda. A recently demoted from India duty Irfan Pathan partnered with Rakesh Patel to reduce Mumbai to an abject 0 runs for 5 wickets down, and once again the epitaphs were beginning to be written for Mumbai. Not only did they not lose the game, but they turned it around and won the game outright, which was just the latest example of the never say die spirit that Mumbai cricket is so steeped in.

The Final saw them facing a team that had gotten the better of them during the season, including the humiliation of forcing Mumbai to follow on, though a combination of weather and rear-guard action on the field prevented Bengal from winning that encounter at Kolkata’s Eden Garden outright.

However for the Final Mumbai saw the return of four Team India players including the peerless Sachin Tendulkar, along with Ajit Agarkar, Zaheer Khan and Ramesh Powar to the side to take on Bengal who were themselves bolstered by the return of its stalwart Sourav Ganguly. And clearly the fire-power suddenly available to Mazumdar was Awesome and Mumbai were favorites again. In the end it was that firepower that made the difference. Mumbai without its four or five international players versus Bengal without Ganguly would have been an even match up.

The match itself though somewhat one-sided in the end was quite absorbing, with each and every day producing superb vignettes, from Tendulkar and Jaffer on the first day to Zaheer Khan on the second, and then Tiwary and Ganguly on the third and fourth days.

Also this was the first time in history that the Ranji Trophy Final was being telecast live globally via the internet. The audience who watched the match via that medium far outstripped the smallish but highly vocal crowds that watched the Final live. What the coverage showed though is that Indian domestic cricket, at least at the Elite level, is not as weak as critics make it out to be. It can also be very exciting, if sporting pitches with some bounce and carry, as well as turn later on, such as the Wankhede wicket produced for this match are replicated around the country.

Finally a word about Bengal and their fighting spirit. Deep Dasgupta, the captain, needs to be congratulated on the steady and positive manner he has led Bengal throughout the season. Ganguly mentored him in the position last year, and Bengal are reaping the rewards this season. The work of Paras Mhambrey who took over from Karsan Ghavri both ex-Mumbai players themselves, as coach was outstanding.

Also enough cannot be said about the young batting star Manoj Tiwary who overshadowed the better publicized Rohit Sharma. Tiwary showed a fearlessness in the face of the pace and bounce of Zaheer Khan and especially Ajit Agarkar, who was clocking over 140 kmph quite often, that augers well for his succeeding on an even bigger stage. Ranadeb Bose, the bowling machine, who seemed tireless in the energy sapping heat and humidity of Mumbai also deserves all the kudos possible. If he can get a place in the squad for the Test series in England, it would be just reward as well.

Bengal have much to be proud of, despite losing the finals twice in a row. If these two youngsters can be joined by a couple more of similar promise, along with veterans lDasgupta and Rohan Gavaskar, not to mention Sourav Ganguly, if and when he is available for domestic duty, Bengal can hope to make it to the finals thrice in a row next year. And who knows, they may be third time lucky?