Gujarat out but not down

‘‘I am not at all disappointed,” said Gujarat chief coach Anshuman Gaekwad. ‘I’d have loved to be in the semis but I’m satisfied with the way the boys played.’’

They came pretty close, as Gaekwad pointed out. ‘‘We were denied three outright wins, if we had won any of them the result would have been different.’’

Gujarat were within a hair’s breadth of defeating Delhi in the season opener, Delhi managed to stave off defeat by one wicket. Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh averted a loss by three wickets.

There have been many gains (see box) but gaekwad said the difference was one chink in their armour. ‘‘We lacked a quality spinner in the side. My pacers would bowl their hearts out to give us upper hand but on the third and fourth day, when the pitches are low and slow, we need spinners who can fetch us the wickets.’’

One talking point — perhaps the turning point — was the draw against Railways. On the third day, Gujarat led by 184 runs and could have enforced a follow-on. But they chose to bat the for rest of the match.

Gaekwad explains: ‘‘I know people think that we should have gone for the kill, asked Railways to follow on. I would have loved doing it too. But not many know that Siddharth Trivedi and Hitesh Majumdar were not fit enough to bowl.’’

It was the fourth match, he pointed out, there were three to go. ‘‘I had to rely on my pacers for the rest of the season. If they were injured we would not have even come close to qualifying’’, he said.

What does the team take from this season? ‘‘The biggest gain is that we’ve started to play as a team and everybody is contributing. The boys have now started believing that they can win. Once they do it, they will want to do it again and again.’’