2016-17 Ranji Trophy: Gujarat create history by beating Mumbai in the Finals
Gujarat created history by becoming only the fourth team after Tamil Nadu, Baroda and Bengal to win all the three premier domestic tournaments when they defeated Mumbai by 5 wickets in the finals of 2016-17 Ranji Trophy. With this win, Gujarat ended their 83-year wait to get their hands on the elusive trophy for the first time in history.
Skipper Parthiv Patel led from the front with a 90 in the first innings and followed it up with a splendid 143 in the second innings. For Mumbai, this is just their fifth loss in 46 Ranji finals.
Chasing a record total of 312, Gujarat resumed day 5 from 47/0 and lost the leading runscorer in this season’s Ranji Trophy, Priyank Panchal early to Balwinder Sandhu. Sandhu struck again as he castled Bhargav Merai for just 2 and reduced Gujarat to 51-2 in no time. Parthiv Patel walked out to bat and looked nervous at the start. Once he along with opener Samit Gohil survived the hostile spell from Sandhu, runs started flowing off their bat as Gujarat took control.
It was when Mumbai’s crisis man Abhishek Nayar struck as he dismissed Gohil caught behind by Aditya Tare for 21, but the replays suggested that there was a huge gap between the bat and the ball. Manpreet Juneja, who scored a fluent 77 in Gujarat’s first innings steadied the ship with his skipper, who looked in a league of his own. The Indian stumper reached his fifty off just 71 balls and looked set to take his team home.
Juneja played the supporting role to Parthiv, who was just smashing the ball to the boundary. Soon after reaching his fifty, Juneja was dismissed against the run of play by Akhil Herwadkar. Parthiv became the third wicketkeeper-batsman to score a century in the Ranji Trophy finals when the ball kissed the inside edge of his bat and went to the fine-leg fielder that allowed the left-hander to run 2.
Since then, it was just one-way traffic as runs kept coming from the bat of Parthiv and Rijul Bhatt. With just 13 runs away from glory, Parthiv was dismissed by Shardul Thakur for 143 that came from 196 balls with 22 boundaries.
Gujarat sealed the match when Chirag Gandhi smashed Thakur to the backward point fence. Mumbai have themselves to blame as their fielders dropped as many as six catches on the final day.
Here are some of the important numbers from day 5 of the 2016-17 Ranji Trophy finals.
1 - This is the first time Gujarat are winning the Ranji Trophy.
17 - Gujarat became the 17th team to win the Ranji Trophy.
4 - Gujarat became the third team after Tamil Nadu, Baroda and Bengal to win Ranji Trophy, Vijay Hazare Trophy and Syed Mushtaq Ali trophy. Uttar Pradesh shared the Vijay Hazare Trophy with Tamil Nadu in the past and they have won both the Ranji Trophy and Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy too.
3 - Parthiv Patel became the third wicketkeeper-batsman to score a century in the Ranji Trophy finals.
5 - This is Mumbai’s fifth loss in the finals of Ranji Trophy. They featured in the finals on 46 occasions.
5 - Number of centuries scored by Parthiv Patel in first-class matches against Mumbai. He hasn’t scored more than 2 tons against any other team.
312 - This is the highest successful chase in the finals of Ranji Trophy.