Sunday, May 04, 2003
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Cricket
By G. Viswanath
The skippers — Mumbai's Paras Mhambrey (left) and Tamil Nadu's S. Suresh — having a chat on the eve of the Ranji Trophy final, at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai on Saturday. — Photo: Vivek Bendre
After dithering for a couple of years, the Board ushered in the new format borrowed from England. The man who worked on dividing the 27 units into two groups, and its subsequent sub-divisions on the basis of the teams' performances in the previous year, Sunil Gavaskar, was not quite happy. He had proposed that the top two teams from each zone should go to the Elite Group. But the Working Committee diluted his proposal and added that the third team from each of the five zones would also move to the Elite Group. Gavaskar had good intentions. He was keen that only the best made the grade and that the players of the teams positioned in the Elite Group had the feeling of having sweated to be part of the creamy layer and fight for the prestigious trophy. Karnataka, which has supplied quite a few players to the national squad, suffered because it had a poor run this season. However, having won the `Plate Group' it will figure in the Elite Group in the 2003-2004 season. Fifteen teams — split into 8 and 7 — formed the Elite Group from which Mumbai and Tamil Nadu got its act together from last November and have now positioned for the ultimate honour. The new pattern involved a bit of travelling and playing in different conditions. Instead of beginning its season somewhere in the arid region of Saurashtra or Pune's Nehru stadium, Mumbai opened its first class season at the Gymkhana Ground, Secunderabad. Mumbai and Hyderabad, apart from being seasoned campaigners, have fought tooth and nail battles and on most occasions the former has come out with flying colours. But at the Gymkhana Ground, a seamer of lesser repute — Narendrpal Singh — sent Mumbai's first innings packing in a six-wicket spell. Mumbai's reply showed the champion stuff it is made of. It won the match by 69 runs and introduced to Indian cricket, a quality seamer in Avishkar Salvi.
Mumbai has batting worries
But Mumbai's batting plight continues, which coach Chandrakant Pandit and captain Mhambrey hope will improve and that the key batsmen will rise to the occasion in the final. It had sufficient bench strength in the days when Gavaskar and Ramnath Parkar opened the innings and were followed by Ajit Wadekar, Dilip Sardesai, Ashok Mankad and Eknath Solkar. Even in their absence, Mumbai's second strength players delivered. That is not the case now. It had leaned heavily on Sachin Tendulkar, but this has been a season wherein Mumbai's lower order — with contributions from Sairaj Bahutule, Vinayak Samant and Romesh Pawar — had produced surprising results and in a consistent manner. The refrain is Mumbai's batting begins with Mhambrey! Mumbai's concern is the failure of Wasim Jaffer and Vinayak Mane in the first essays. Jaffer averaged 23 plus and Mane 22 plus in seven matches before the semifinal against Baroda. They did not score many runs in that match in which Mumbai destroyed Baroda inside two and half days. Their second innings scores have taken their aggregate close to 500 runs, with Jaffer scoring two centuries in eight matches. Mane, who was praised by Glenn McGrath two years ago, is yet to score his maiden first class century. But the season has not been altogether without gains. After a successful match against Hyderabad, Salvi showed significant improvement to become a professional bowler taking over 50 wickets in the Ranji Trophy and in the matches he played in the Carib Beer Cup in the West Indies. Mumbai will rely on Salvi (26 wickets at 13. 50 in eight matches), Ajit Agarkar (14 wickets at 11.64 in two matches), Sairaj Bahutule (32 wickets at 17. 18 in eight matches) and Mhambrey (22 wickets at 24. 27 in eight matches) to stop the Tamil Nadu batting might in its tracks. After another practice session in sultry weather, Mhambrey said, "Tamil Nadu's batting doesn't necessarily worry us. We have a bowling attack that can destroy rivals. There's no doubt that Tamil Nadu's batting has clicked this season. We respect that. But situations change in every match. We will play the final, session by session. We played in 43 degrees Celsius in Baroda.'' Mumbai's preparation has been tactically specific and to deal with the five left-handers in the side. On Thursday, Agarkar and Salvi bowled with the new ball to Sairaj Bahutule and Nishit Shetty, the two left-handers in their squad. "Agarkar and Salvi will be bowling to Ramesh, Vidyut Sivaramakrishnan and others like Hemang Badani, S. Sharath and S. Sriram. I always shuffle the batting order in the nets so that everybody gets a decent chance to bat,'' said Pandit who gave a two-day break to players after the win against Baroda. The Tamil Nadu team arrived at the Wankhede at 8 a.m. and did not find the weather comfortable. However, after batting and bowling for two hours, the players felt better barebodied and bowling at the nets. They were all beginning to feel the heat which might effect their performance. The visiting team's strength is its batting. Tamil Nadu has a grafter in Sriram, who if his performance against Punjab is anything to go by, is capable of playing a long innings. The left-hander spent nine hours and seven minutes at the crease to make 267. He has scored 610 runs in seven matches. Ramesh and Suresh have collected more than a useful 400 runs. Badani should not find himself short on inspiration at the Wankhede where he scored over 200 runs in two innings three years ago. The presence of five left-handers in the top six will exact the most from Agarkar, Salvi and Bahutule. Tamil Nadu's chief wicket taker has been L. Balaji whose 44 scalps at 12.77 had seven five wicket hauls in an innings. Tamil Nadu's chances of beating Mumbai in Mumbai for the first time depend on its batting strength and Balaji's bowling prowess. Pandit was inclined to underplay the pressure on both the teams. His counterpart Bharat Arun went up to Pandit before leaving the Wankhede, clasped his hand and said, "Let's play a good match.'' "This is a final of a national championship and the idea should be to play a good cricket match,'' said Pandit. The teams: Mumbai (from): Paras Mhambrey (capt.), Wasim Jaffer, Vinayak Mane, Nishit Shetty, Bhavin Thakkar, Amol Muzumdar, Sairaj Bahutule, Ajit Agarkar, Avishkar Salvi, Vinayak Samant, Ramesh Powar, Swapnil Hazare, Nilesh Kulkarni, Vinit Indulkar, Robin Morris. Tamil Nadu (from): S. Suresh (capt.), S. Ramesh, S. Sriram, Hemang Badani, S. Sharath, Vidyut Sivaramakrishnan, Vasanth Saravanan, L. Balaji, M.R. Shrinivas, Raaju Radhakrishnan, D. Dandapani, J.R. Madanagopal, S. Badrinath, R. Ram Kumar, Dinesh Karthick and D.J. Gokulakrishnan. Umpires: Messrs: Narendra Menon and Vijay Chopra. Match Referee: B. Ganguly.
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