Mumbai wins their 42nd Ranji Trophy Title
Mumbai defeated Vidarbha by 168 runs to clinch their 42nd Ranji Trophy title after 8 years. The clash between the two Maharashtrian teams took place at the iconic Wankhede stadium which is also the home ground of the Mumbai team.
The odds heavily favored the Star-studded Mumbai side which included former Indian Test team captain Ajinkya Rahane, Shreyas Iyer, Prithvi Shaw, Shardul Thakur, Dhawal Kulkarni, etc. On the other side team Vidarbha who never started the season as favorites played like favorites and made it to the finale. Mumbai had last won the Ranji trophy season in 2015-16 on the other side Vidarbha was the winner of the 2017-18 & 2018-19 seasons.
After winning the toss on Sunday Mumbai decided to bat first and could only manage 224 runs in the 1st Innings. Apart from Prithvi ( 46), all other batters failed but Shardul Thakur came to their rescue and scored a quickfire 75 to take Mumbai to 224. Vidarbha who had a golden chance to take a 1st Innings lead and put Mumbai under pressure got bowled out for just 105. Dhawal Kulkarni who was playing his last first-class game took 3 wickets along with Mulani & Kotian who also grabbed 3 each.
In the 2nd Innings Mumbai batted beautifully and scored 418 runs. Musheer Khan who was at the start of the recently concluded U-19 World Cup scored 136. Big guns Rahane & Iyer showed their class by scoring 73 & 95 which helped them gain a huge lead of 587 runs. Harsh Dubey took 5 wickets and also dismissed Rahane in both Innings.
Defending 587 everyone thought would be a cakewalk for the Mumbai bowlers but Vidarbha had other plans. On day 4 Vidarbha batters played solid cricket and scored 248 runs for the loss of 5 wickets. All the batters got good starts Karun Nair the professional recruit of Vidarbha scored a helpful 74.
At the start of day 5 Vidarbha required 290 runs and Mumbai needed 5 wickets. Skipper Akshay Wadkar and Hrash Dubey played the 1st session of the day without losing a single wicket and scored 85 runs. After Akshay got to his 1st Hundred of the season and when everyone started to believe Vidarbha was coming back into the game Tanush Kotian provided the breakthrough getting the skipper Akshay LBW for 102 runs. Once Akshay was out Mumbai bowlers did not take much time to wrap things up and Vidarbha got bowled out for 368 runs. Harsh Dubey proved his all-round skills and scored a solid 65. Kotian was the pick of the bowlers he took 4 wickets and Mumbai finally managed to win their 42nd Ranji Trophy title. Musheer Khan was declared the player of the match while Tanush Kotian was adjourned as the player of the tournament. With this, the domestic season of BCCI officially comes to an end and now the focus shifts to the “Indian Prem
