Kerala did not lose a single game in its memorable campaign.
| Photo Credit: Nirmal Harindran
What if there was no Mike-Gatting-reverse-sweeping moment for Sachin Baby?
What if Ahammed Imran didn’t gift his wicket away after battling so hard?
What if Akshay Chandran hadn’t dropped Karun Nair?
If none of the above had happened, Kerala probably would have been celebrating one of its greatest moments in its rich sporting history, and not the runner-up finish at the Ranji Trophy. To reach the final of India’s most prestigious domestic tournament is no mean feat, no doubt, and Baby and his men deserve all the attention they are getting. They could feel proud about exceeding just about everyone’s expectations. They didn’t lose a single game (the final was decided by the first innings, in which Vidarbha took the lead), and they played all their knock-out games away from home, unlike their opponent.
What set this Kerala team apart from the earlier ones was the fighting spirit. There was a never-say-die attitude. Such resilience saw Kerala squeeze out the first innings lead of one and two in the knock-out fixtures. A lot of work had gone into it: coach Amay Khurasia insisted on the tail-enders spending a lot of time batting at nets.
He will have reasons to worry about Kerala’s top-order, though. It has struggled throughout the tournament; it was the middle-order, especially the lower one, that had the task of making the totals decent.
Salman Nizar and Mohammed Azharuddeen were brilliant in the middle-order. They were the only batters to score hundreds for Kerala in the tournament. Just three hundreds from 10 matches isn’t pretty statistics. Contrast that with Vidarbha’s 15.
Vidarbha’s coach Usman Ghani, shortly after his boys’ victory in the final, spoke of how he had prioritised the issue with batting after the defeat in the Ranji Trophy final last year. Kerala too needs to address the issue ahead of next season.
The team also needs to groom some spinners. Jalaj Saxena is 38 and Aditya Sarwate is only three years younger. It’s time Kerala invested in some home-grown promising spinners.
While the return of Eden Apple Tom after three years is great news for a side that has of late struggled to live up to its legacy in pace bowling, more young seamers need to be identified for the future.
The Kerala Cricket Association should also think about reviving the district academies that were closed down. The large number of academies was what impressed Chandrakant Pandit, arguably the country’s best coach, when he was the director of Kerala cricket a dozen years ago.
Published – March 04, 2025 06:07 pm IST
