Makarand Waingankar
Mumbai’s dominance in domestic cricket continues with it winning the Ranji Trophy for the 38th time in a convincing manner. Whenever they failed to win the Ranji Trophy there is a talk of other teams raising the standard but a cursory glance at the statistics indicates that apart from Uttar Pradesh no other ‘new’ team has emerged to be in the last four of the championship.
Though the Mumbai selection committee concurred with the coach and captain on the choice of some non-performing players in the squad (the Cricket Improvement Committee had to intervene), the combination that was picked for each match clicked! And the addition of Sachin Tendulkar and Zaheer Khan in the last two matches added to the team’s strength.
There is a distinct change in the pattern of play of the Mumbai team. No longer do they believe in grinding the opposition and bowling defensively to contain the batsmen. The change in the mindset made the team dominate a major part of the matches. The team worked on perfect planning and its implementation without bothering about the experience of the players.
Horses for courses
Not only was Nilesh Kulkarni sidelined from the first game but Amol Muzumdar was also dropped for the final just when he was short of 31 runs of becoming the highest run-getter in the Ranji Trophy.
Sairaj Bahutule was dropped for a couple of matches. Even after getting an unbeaten double hundred against Delhi, opener Sahil Kukreja was dropped to accommodate all-rounder Abhishek Nayar.
In the absence of Zaheer, the team was given a good start by Ajit Agarkar and young Dhawal Kulkarni by winning the matches in less than three days.
Ajinkya Rahane went about scoring at will and Rohit Sharma toyed with the bowling.
With back to back hundreds in the final, he surely looks to have booked his place in the Indian team.
Wasim Jaffer continues to prove the ‘poor’ standard of domestic tournaments by scoring heavily. He looks elegant as long as bowlers bowl to his strengths but his technical deficiencies are exposed against quality attack. He may be added to the list of those who were good enough to torment an attack in domestic tournaments but strictly not international fare. In Mumbai’s win there is a lesson for the other teams.
The major difference between Mumbai and others is that Mumbai attacks relentlessly till the time the last opposition wicket falls.
