What if there was no Mike-Gatting-reverse-sweeping second for Sachin Baby?
What if Ahammed Imran didn’t reward his wicket away after battling so exhausting?
What if Akshay Chandran held on to that catch from Karun Nair?
If not one of the above had occurred, Kerala in all probability would have been celebrating one in every of its best moments in its wealthy sporting historical past, and never the runner-up end on the Ranji Trophy. To attain the ultimate of India’s most prestigious home event isn’t any imply feat, little doubt, and Baby and his males deserve all the eye they’re getting. They might really feel proud about exceeding nearly everybody’s expectations. They didn’t lose a single recreation (the ultimate was determined by the primary innings, by which Vidarbha took the lead), and so they performed all their knock-out video games away from dwelling, in contrast to their opponent.
What set this Kerala staff other than the sooner ones was the combating spirit. There was a never-say-die perspective. Such resilience noticed Kerala squeeze out the primary innings lead of 1 and two within the knock-out fixtures. Numerous work had gone into it: coach Amay Khurasia insisted on the tail-enders spending a lot of time batting at nets.
He can have causes to fear about Kerala’s top-order, although. It has struggled all through the event; it was the middle-order, particularly the decrease one, that had the duty of creating the totals respectable.
Salman Nizar and Mohammed Azharuddeen had been good within the middle-order. They had been the one batters to rating a whole bunch for Kerala within the event. Just three a whole bunch from 10 matches isn’t fairly statistics. Contrast that with Vidarbha’s 15.
Vidarbha’s coach Usman Ghani, shortly after his boys’ victory within the last, spoke of how he had prioritised the problem with batting after the defeat within the Ranji Trophy last final 12 months. Kerala too wants to tackle the problem forward of subsequent season.
The staff additionally wants to groom some spinners. Jalaj Saxena is 38 and Aditya Sarwate is simply three years youthful. It’s time Kerala invested in some home-grown promising spinners.
While the return of Eden Apple Tom after three years is nice information for a facet that has of late struggled to dwell up to its legacy in tempo bowling, extra younger seamers want to be recognized for the long run.
The Kerala Cricket Association also needs to take into consideration reviving the district academies that had been closed down. The giant variety of academies was what impressed Chandrakant Pandit, arguably the nation’s finest coach, when he was the director of Kerala cricket a dozen years in the past.
Published – March 04, 2025 06:07 pm IST
