Where are Mumbai’s batting heroes?
This Ranji Season has been for many reasons a peculiar one. Kerala, a team that was never really considered a force in the Indian cricket circuit, scripted an impressive run under their new coach Dav Whatmore. After having played the knockout stages for the first time in history in the 2017/18 season, they bettered it by a notch by playing the semi-final this year.
The fact that a team that was deprived of proper training facilities for over 3 months, owing to the devastating floods that the state witnessed this year, managed to achieve a feat of those proportions, is truly commendable.
Vidarbha after having won the tournament for the first time last season continued to deliver superlative performances. And most notably, a team that has dominated the tournament and Indian cricket history at large, were eliminated in the group stages.
India’s biggest and most prestigious domestic cricket tournament has now staged 85 editions. Of these, Mumbai has won it a whopping 41 times- almost half of the total. In the 1958-59 season, Mumbai won the Ranji Trophy by defeating defending champions Bengal in the finals.
In the process, they ignited a season of supreme dominance over the tournament that saw them win 15 editions on the trot. The streak would finally be broken by Karnataka only for Mumbai to return a year later to win another three editions on the trot.
The 1958-74 era is quite easily the period at which Mumbai was at the peak of its prowess. However, quite notably, even in the 1984 and onwards period, that experts state as the statistical lean patch for the domestic giants, Mumbai won 11 titles. Such has been the aura and stature of Mumbai in India’s domestic circles.
Mumbai is famed for its school of batsmanship which has over its time through history turned out to be the envy of the world. Generation after generation, Mumbai delivered cricketing heroes and legends to the Indian team. From Vijay Merchant to Sunil Gavaskar, and then the legendary Sachin Tendulkar himself, Mumbai has been India’s source of batting mainstays and cricketing icons. But for some unidentified reason, the relentless supply for once seems to have stopped.
Mumbai in all senses was never supposed to be a mine where you chance upon a gem once in a while. Mumbai was supposed to be an assembly line, a conveyor belt that kept delivering. When India famously toured the English shores for the first time in 1952 under the leadership of Vijay Merchant, India fielded a team in which 7 players were from Mumbai- an ode to its rich cricketing legacy.
The epic final of the 1991 Ranji Trophy season was another testimony to this. In arguably the greatest contest that the tournament has delivered, Mumbai took the field to face a Haryana team captained by the great Kapil Dev himself. The Mumbai XI featured as many as 8 capped players from the Indian setup including Lalachand Rajput, Sanjay Manjrekar, Dilip Vengsarkar, Sachin Tendulkar, Vinod Kambli, and others.
It is therefore a rude awakening of sorts to fans and the administration alike that Mumbai has been eliminated in the group stages. The drastic decline in its caliber and ability both mentally and skill wise have for some time now been brushed under the mat under the facade of some intermittent display of brilliance reminiscent of its past. The concerning question has made its presence felt for some time now. But for once, it cannot be ignored.
Where are Mumbai’s batting heroes?
For all its glory, there is no denying the fact that Mumbai’s is a cricketing legend composed on the back of its batting riches. In the previous decade, Mumbai has offered Rohit Sharma, Ajinkya Rahane, Shreyas Iyer and in more recent times, Prithvi Shaw, to Indian cricket.
Though there is a lot of hope pinned on the shoulders of Shaw, the others are batsmen who have delivered glimpses of ability and vast reserves of talent but failed to make the most of it.
Rohit has been the pinnacle of artistry with the bat for India in colored clothing in recent times. But quite unexpectedly for a batsman of his potential, he has not been able to make it in the longer formats. Rahane’s form in recent times has been fading and he has not created any ripples either.
Mumbai has always been India’s cricketing capital. History will tell you that there was a time in Indian Cricket when to make it to the Indian team, you had to either play for Mumbai or put up sterling performances against them. Yes, many would argue against the selection bias that probably existed. And it is wonderful to break down barriers and take cricket to every corner of India. If not, the world would never have had a glimpse of MS Dhoni.
But Mumbai and India at large are in need of a revival of the Mumbai school of batsmanship. Now, more than ever.
It is not for nothing that someone once remarked on the relentless never-say-die attitude of Mumbai batsmen, to quote:
You tell me—why would a hard-working, middle-class boy, who travels for three hours along with a heavy kitbag in neutron-star-dense local trains just for a chance to bat, give up his wicket so easily?