Also Read: In the company of Champs!

All eyes will now be on the Incredible Premier League which kicks off in a few days’ time. This year’s tournament will be important for many a player from different countries looking to find a place in their country’s team for the ICC World T20 championship.  There is already some ill-founded speculation on the selection of certain players in the Indian team. What is amusing is that so many former overseas players are talking about what the Indian team should be. You won’t ever find an Indian player telling other countries who should be in their squad and who shouldn’t be. What you will also not find is that the same overseas players talking about who should be in the squads of the other teams. So the question is, why do to they want to poke their noses in the selection of the Indian team. Ajit Agarkar and his fellow selection committee members have done an outstanding job of selecting the Indian squads over the season and so thanks, but no thanks to all these former overseas cricketers. Please mind your own business and don’t tell us what to do.

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Taking responsibility

Coming back to the Ranji final, Mumbai had somebody or the other putting their hand up on crucial occasions. But it would be only fair to mention three names who could be in line for bigger things—Shams Mulani, the left-handed all-rounder, the offie Tanush Kotian who is such a handy bat down the order and young Musheer Khan. No one is forgetting the centuries scored by Shardul Thakur and Tushar Deshpande in the earlier rounds, as it will remain in the memory for a long, long time, as also Ajinkya Rahane’s captaincy.

Wonderful Wadkar

It was pretty close till lunch time on the last day. Vidarbha, to their credit, kept fighting and did not give up till the very end. That’s exactly how you want a final to be. No praise can be too high for Vidarbha’s skipper Akshay Wadkar for his magnificent century full of some sparkling shots, the best of which was a pull shot off the slippery Tushar Deshpande that went to the square-leg boundary even quicker than it came off the pitch. Having kept wickets for two days and then to come and play such an innings just speaks of the calibre of this young cricketer. Don’t forget that he was also the captain of the team, so he would have been physically and mentally drained out after Mumbai’s second innings effort and yet he comes out and plays a superb innings like this one. The national selection committee was very much present at the finals and hopefully would have made a note of this top class performance. The way Vidarbha did not crumble, as in the past, can also be attributed to the influence of Chandrakant Pandit, the former Mumbai player, who was a coach over there and under whom Vidarbha won the Ranji Trophy back to back and also the Irani Trophy. Under him another team Madhya Pradesh, which also used to be unfancied in the past, won the Ranji Trophy couple of years back.  

Pandit’s task 

Hopefully Chandu will be able to replicate his results at the Ranji level, in the IPL too.  It will be interesting to see, if that happens, whether he gets the credit or someone else. 

Professional Management Group