Day 4 (match concluded) Ranji Trophy final 2010, Karnataka Vs Mumbai
By Vikram Afzulpurkar
Master moves/plays by Karnataka in order of priority and (usually) more recent first because of context of playing in pressure and deliver time.
- G Satish's batting of fibre (70 odd) in the final chase
- Manish Pandey's 150 at nearly a run a ball
- Karnataka's strategy of attacking before the second new ball would become due for Mumbai (2nd innings)
- Joshi's attacking even after the new ball was taken (he was smart to realise that staying only invites pressure and fatality, which can be neutralized by picking the right ball to hit, that to over the fielders, again highly frustrating them
- Mithun's superlative bowling in both innings and the threat he posed at all times
- Dhawal Kulkarni's wickets of Stuart Binny and Vinay Kumar in the second innings
- Sunil Joshi's dismissal through a regulation caught behind (second innings)
- Iqbal Abdulla's being brought on to bowl left-arm orthodox and equally Wasim Jaffer's conferences with him (video replays of the match will show a startling regularity between those and the fall of a Karnataka wicket in the second innings. Whether it was the actual conversation or the time-out causing a break in rythm to the batsman is only known to the Mumbai team)
- Avishkar Salvi's three wickets in the first innings. Remember these were three top batsmen and at a time when wickets were needed. The low Karnataka first innings score of 130 is largely owed to this, because of which, don't forget, the eventual target of 338 got created for Karnataka
- Not matching Mumbai enough in judgement outside the off stump when batting, which would have saved a few batsmen or delayed their fall. That element of Mumbai fibre helped their team feel they had a mighty weapon and imposed on their opponents in a way not possible to word.
- Their dropped catches and importantly non-alertness to half chances. In contrast, Mumbai latched on to everything and seemed to have been unable to convert just one half chance (Jaffer), not withstanding Rahane's 'almost dropped the world cup, son' dying moments effort, which unfortunately for him qualifies more as a full chance because it was the title-snatcher, and the famous Pandey spill by keeper Samant.
- Amit Verma's dubious dismissal (not their fault)
Mumbai's forgettable moves/moments were:
- Assuming like the rest that 338 would be safe enough a target to defend. Shouldn't they remember that in the last, and title, match of the season, the rivals would pull out all stops and strategise towards it. After all, don't forget what the last decade taught us - even 433 can be chased in 50 overs in international cricket.
- Semi related to the above point is the fact that they suspected but did not urgently press the case that the pitch would in fact slow down on day 3. If they did, then some strategising perhaps in imploring Abhishek Nayar never to go over the top (in the second innings) and pleading with Dhawal batting to leave the good new ball outside the off stump, might have been the order of the day. After all, the way these two had salvaged operations, it seems a better manner of dismissal (we all have to meet that fate eventually) might have been more deserved. Not to mention that it would likely have added runs... but wait... there's more...frustrated the Karnataka fielders and bowlers into more loose balls even.
- Keeper Samant dropping Pandey early in his innings
1. I'd like to touch upon some above mentioned points because they may just become 'one in the list' - Joshi's batting (2nd) actually got Karnataka closer to the title although the spectators will harp on his lame dismissal. Upto the point that the old ball was in operation, it seemed to be the team decision, spearheaded in execution by Pandey no doubt, to attack it before its time ran out. But once the new ball was claimed, it would have seemed the commonsense thing to play out normally. That is where Joshi was smarter than the rest (unless his camp was on the same page with him), and a case in point is his own dismissal - that hanging around only makes the Mumbai team sniff wickets and in the battle of attrition, a wicket falls (unfortunately before too many runs are added). He went over the top even against the new ball, unsettling fielders and bowlers with timely boundaries and helped ease the pressure. A good performance from an elder statesman.
2. G Satish's name has been prioritized above Pandey's above. Reasons: Pandey would not have been able to play his strokes without Satish's type of batting for support. Pandey is a different brand of player and is expected to dish out a role the way he did. Satish, however, has not enjoyed a similar kind of confidence state-wide and therefore played out of his skin. Pandey's own knock was slightly above the expected going by his own high standards and supported by the team strategy. So 150 runs off just as many balls is something to marvel at when compared to the other individual scores and the strike rates in this match, but must not be quoted out of context, given the license to execute. Three cheers for Satish.
3. Some guys assume a larger than life figure and Mithun, because of his knack for taking top-order wickets posed a different threat for Mumbai's batsmen who probably played him differently and were put in a shell even though wickets were not necessarily falling later. His open action and line just outside off stump combine to make batsmen play the ball for fear that it may be the inswinger. And of course we all know that the chances of the batsmen to edge are better when they play away from the body, which would be the more likely case whenever they were playing Mithun. This contrasts to regular-action bowlers from both sides whose side on actions require a more pronounced twisting outswing body-action decipherable by the batsman who are therefore not necessarily committed to playing at the resulting ball. Also many of the others pitched their outswingers on or around, not that it is a sin, off stump,allowing the batsmen to play close to the body when they did, therefore minimizing the threat of the edge.
Peach deliveries at crunch time
Mumbai's adoring thousands who watched the match on TV must have likened Dhawal Kulkarni's two match-turning strikes of Stuart Binny and Vinay Kumar to those that Pakistan's Wasim Akram facilitated in their World Cup final of '92 (Sorry, that comparison is a must again). Again, both were bowled, one a batsman (Stuart vis a vis Allan Lamb) threatening to take the game away and falling to a superbly crafted delivery with opened up the right hander. The other an all-rounder (Vinay Kumar vis a vis Chris Lewis) who failed to read the extent of the inswing. Both the dimissals in either game came at a time when the bowling team was not exactly sniffing a wicket but quite in contrast when the batting team looked relatively settled and recovered.
Karnataka take the day's honours
Anyway, recovering from superlatives, one must size up the day's proceedings - Pandey and Satish smashed and milked the Mumbai bowling respectively to helplessness to raise an eventual and unimaginable 200 run stand, a sight unfortunately denied to many television viewers because of a network breakdown. Pandey fell just before lunch and when it looked like at least alternate wicket stands would trickle down the required runs to an achievable score, which it did, the Mumbai pace bowlers epecially kept coming out out with something special. Certainly, if deservedness needs to be attributed to a Mumbai victory it would have be for Dhawal Kulkarni's clean-bowling reasonably good batsmen, bowling the new ball even without the support of a full slip cordon - Binny's and Vinay's dismissals.
Bowling masterpieces
Dhawal's were superbly hand-crafted deliveries because in either case the batsman was not slogging but was beaten all ends up. Amit Verma can consider himself really unlucky to be given out caught behind by umpire Saheba when the ball had in fact hit his pad as he attempted to flick away Abdulla's spin. This highlights an important point of referral and the use of technology to minimize human error. There was no referral in this instance but the replays clearly showed a huge gap between bad and ball. This dismissal, like when Abdulla schemed Pandey's caught-at-slip earlier was preceded by a captain-bowler conference, one of them pre-over, the other mid-over. So, there's the trick - call a conference even if you're talking about your holiday in Spain! Well, Warne and Healy in '95 spoke of exactly these things before holding up Basit Ali from 3 minutes to bowl him with the last ball of the day. No strategy there except to upset the rythm.
Sticking to commonsense
In the dying moments, Karnataka, as a strategy chose not to nominate a strike-hogger (who would protect the lesser batsman), probably rightly so, as they needed every run. Well, just to deviate, in the famous Twenty20 2007 final lost to India, Pakistan, probably the batsman himself, Misbah decided not to run singles or run runs which would expose the weaker batsman, that too when balls were at a premium. History had to freeze there to analyze if this would become a trend. Anyway, the Karnataka batsmen cast that theory aside (which eventually Karnataka cynics might deliberate after Arvind's evidenced vulnerability) probably because Vinay as a batsman was only slightly better than Arvind and every run was precious. Karnataka then garnered as many singles from either batsmen, initially Arvind and Vinay and afterwards the former and Mithun. Unfortunately Arvind, who'd a couple of minutes earlier cut one just above head level to Rahane at point for a spilled chance (maybe a three-quarter chance) fell to the experienced Agarkar's - attempting to turn away the ball past leg, the deviation did him in and he returned an easy leading edge to the ecstatic bowler.
Agarkar came into the match
Agarkar in a way got his way, symbolically clinching the last wicket and also being the leading wicket taker in the second innings for Mumbai with a tally of five. His aggro with the Karnataka team, starting with his diabolical run-out by wicket-keeper Mithun seemed to typify the theme of the match. He'd got Mithun's wicket too, the first, and at another point, as one newspaper reports, the entire Mumbai team had huddled to mouth an obscenity to the departing batsman Uthappa, retribution for the latter's employing ball-abuse, akin to racquet-abuse in tennis, that is, banging the ball into the ground to see off batsman Agarkar departing. Oh, but for the terror and tumult of hate to cease.... and life to be refashioned on anvils of peace! But neither team was in the mood for Wordsworth.
The Karnataka boys played like winners
Karnataka have to take heart from the fact that they didn't really lose this match because of the way they came back, but unfortunately there has to be one nominated winner.
Most relieved player (of the tournament): Ajinkya Rahane
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