Colts bring glory to Mumbai

And strangely it was through his unheralded vocation that he fought his way back into the team. Or at least caught the attention of the selectors for starters. The paucity of wickets were made up for with four half-centuries in the Times Shield,bringing Attarwala back into the reckoning. But it is unlikely that he would have still imagined his batting playing a crucial role in his team achieving glory at the Wankhede Stadium.

Batting at number eight,it was his crucial 50 that took Mumbai to a first innings score of 173,which gave their bowlers some sort of a target to bowl at. And they did make the most of it,bowling out Maharashtra for 150,gaining a slender lead of 23 for the hosts. For good measure,Attarwala did get one wicket,and that too the most important one—the in-form batsman Vijay Zol,who had scored 1548 runs till then in the tournament but could manage a mere two runs here.

Had there been a man-of-the-match award,Attarwala would have surely taken it home. For his batting that is. “I knew that I can bat and if you see our line-up then we have batsmen till No.11. The 50 in the first innings will remain in my memory for long as it came in the final,” a delighted Attarwala insisted.

The final day of the four-day contest was reduced to being a mere formality as Mumbai went on to score 439 runs in their second innings,setting an improbable target of 463 for Maharashtra to chase in two sessions.

Mumbai coach Satish Samant lauded his team’s effort and said that their preparation this year was exemplary.

“Our off-season training happened on time and as planned. We played practice matches against MP in September which gave us an idea about our strengths and how we could perform during the season. Then we went to Chandigarh to play a tournament where we lost the final to Punjab,” he explained.

He further added,“We could identify the individual capacities of our players there,who we could bank on and for what. There were 12 all-rounders in our squad. If someone didn’t perform a role,there was always someone else ready to do it. Our lower-order batting was our main strength.”

During the second innings,Mumbai’s last four batsmen managed to add 160 runs. The lower-order has also often bailed the senior team out on numerous occasions over the last few seasons in the Ranji Trophy and probably this is just a trickle-down effect.

For Attarwala though,the next few months now will be focused on regaining his bowling form and his pace back. It might have been his batting that brought him back into focus,and also won Mumbai the trophy but he is far from turning his back on his primary facet.

Brief scores

Mumbai 173 and 439 (Jaideep Pardeshi 125,Akarshit Gomel 53,Mairaj Khan 40,Atif Attarwala 47,Pratik Prabhu 44,Harmeet Singh 65; Vishal Gite 2 for 85,Satyajit Bachhav 3 for 77,Chirag Khurana 4 for 103). Maharashtra 150 and 179 for 3 (Vijay Zol 57,Shubham Ranjane 76 n.o.,Abhijit Salvi not out 20; Akhil Herwadkar 2 for 32).