Madhya Pradesh team finally got their hands on the most coveted trophy of the Indian domestic Cricket the Ranji Trophy. They beat the undisputed kings of the tournament, the 41 times champions, Mumbai, to win their maiden Ranji Trophy title. Trailing by 162 runs after the first innings, Mumbai expected their batters to put up a good show in the second innings, but they failed as the team captain Prithvi Shaw and Sarfaraz Khan couldn’t convert their starts into big scores.
In the first innings, Sarfaraz Khan scored a magnificent hundred and lead his team to a total of 374. Gaurav Yadav picked up 4 wickets and Anubhav Aggarwal picked up 3 wickets for Madhya Pradesh. In reply, M.P batters Yash Dubey, Shubham Sharma and Rajat Patidar brought up their respective hundreds as the team took a healthy lead of 162 runs in the first innings. Shams Mulani picked up 5 wickets from Mumbai and Tushar Deshpande picked 3 wickets.
Kumar Kartikeya was the pick of the bowlers during Mumbai’s 2nd innings as he picked up 4 wickets. Gaurav Yadav and Parth Sahani picked up two wickets each. Mumbai was all out for 269 and managed a lead of 107 runs, thus setting a target of 108 for Madhya Pradesh. Himanshu Mantri, Shubham Sharma and Rajat Patidar scored in the 30s and chased the target with ease.
M.P last featured in a Ranji Final during the 1998-99 season where they came agonizingly close to winning the title. They were cruising at one stage at 108/3 in pursuit of their target of 247 but collapsed to be all out for 150. With this memorable win in the finals, M.P will finally be able to forget the horrors of 1998-99.
Chandrakant Pandit, Madhya Pradesh’s head coach, was the captain of the team in the 198-99 season. Interestingly, the final was played at the same venue, M Chinnaswamy Stadium, back then.
Beating Mumbai in the finals is something M.P would’ve cherished the most as the city has a rich cricketing history with many legendary batsmen emerging from the city.
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