What if there was no Mike-Gatting-reverse-sweep moment for Sachin Baby?
What if Ahammed Imran didn’t gift his wicket away battling so hard?
What if Akshay Chandran held on to that catch from 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, instead of the runner-up finish at the Ranji Trophy. Reaching 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 spend 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.
Jalaj Saxena
| Photo Credit:
NIRMAL HARINDRAN / THE HINDU
Jalaj Saxena
| Photo Credit:
NIRMAL HARINDRAN / THE HINDU
The team also needs to groom some spinners. Jalaj Saxena is 38 and Akshay Sarwate is only three years younger. It is time to invest 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 really impressed Chandrakant Pandit, when he was the director of Kerala cricket a dozen years ago.