Kerala players celebrate on the fifth day of the Ranji Trophy semi-final match against Gujarat in Ahmedabad on Friday.
| Photo Credit: MOORTHY RV
Kerala cricket on Friday (February 21, 2025) at Ahmedabad wrote the most glorious chapter yet in its history.
Kerala, for the first time, reached the final of the Ranji Trophy, India’s premier domestic tournament, after beating host Gujarat in the semi-final. The match was actually drawn, but Kerala got the all-important first-innings lead, in dramatic fashion.
The final day’s play had begun with Gujarat needing 29 runs to overtake Kerala’s first-innings total of 457 with three wickets intact. When Gujarat needed just two more runs — with its last pair at the wicket — to make its second Ranji final, a helmet intervened.
Arzan Nagwaswalla’s attempt to strike Aditya Sarwate through the leg-side hit on Salman Nizar’s helmet and the ball flew to slip, where captain Sachin Baby took Kerala’s most important catch ever.
Gujarat was thus all out for 455, giving Kerala a two-run lead. Now only a spectacular collapse in Kerala’s second innings would have given Gujarat any hope. That didn’t happen, as Kerala lost only four wickets.
For a team that made its Ranji Trophy debut way back in 1957, this is indeed a remarkable feat. For long, Kerala was regarded as one of the easy points for the stronger teams, such as Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Hyderabad (when the Ranji Trophy was played on a zonal basis).
It is even more remarkable that it had the services of its best player, Sanju Samson, only for one match. Interestingly, the team’s two professionals (from outside the State), Jalaj Saxena and Sarwate, in his maiden season with Kerala, played major roles.
Kerala owes its success quite a lot to two home-grown batters, Mohammed Azharuddeen and Salman, who made runs when their team needed. Coach Amay Khurasia also deserves credit for bringing out the team’s fighting spirit.
In the quarterfinal too, Kerala had played away from home, at Pune, against Jammu & Kashmir That match was also decided by the first innings lead; and the margin was even less: just one run.
Kerala had qualified for the knock-out stage by finishing second in its group. Of its seven games, Kerala won three and drew the rest. That means the team hasn’t lost a single game this season.
Kerala’s best performance in the Ranji Trophy before this was in 2018-19 when it reached the semi-finals. The previous year, the team had made it to the quarterfinals. And it was in 1994-95 that Kerala qualified for the knock-out stage for the first time.
Though Kerala has been a powerhouse in many sports, such as football, athletics and volleyball, it was only over the last decade or so that it has become a force to reckon with in cricket. Massive improvement in infrastructure and setting up of academies have all helped. The success of Samson, and S. Sreesanth before him, has inspired children to take up cricket.
Kerala will play Vidarbha at Nagpur in the final beginning on February 26.
It is not just in men’s cricket that Kerala is making a mark. Kerala’s female cricketers have also been in the news of late. V.J. Joshitha was part of the Indian team that won the Women’s Under-19 T20 World Cup earlier this month. She is playing in the ongoing Women’s Premier League.
There are two more players in the WPL — Minnu Mani and S. Sajana (both have played for the senior Indian team). All the three are from Wayanad and they are the products of the academy there.
Published – February 21, 2025 09:33 pm IST
