Plate plus

Behind every real-life fairy tale that unfolds before our eyes,theres hard work,luck and more hard work. Left with the wooden spoon in the Plate League lower division in the last Ranji edition,nobody had given Rajasthan a wild chance of winning the Plate semi-final,let alone beating three Super League SL teams in a row and end up with the trophy. Least of all,when the team Rajasthan took on in the SL quarter-final was the mighty Mumbai. Yet Rajasthan bagged their first Ranji after an eight-decade-long wait.

Rajasthans dream became reality with the efforts of the coach and administrators whose brainstorming resulted in a mix of youth and experience,bringing back Ranji veterans who contributed not only on the pitch but also off it by mentoring a bunch of youngsters. The crisis-hit Rajasthan Cricket Association can pat itself on the back,or veterans Hrishikesh Kantikar,Aakash Chopra and Rashmi Parida bask in the glow with Deepak Chahar and Ashok Menaria. But a technicality should be given credit too: the format since 2008-09 lets the two Plate toppers enter a direct knock-out with the elite teams in the SL quarter-finals,thus giving one of them a genuine chance of going all the way.

Teams move from the bottom upwards in every league; the converse too happens. Thats the arrangement the English Premier League kept with its parent The Football League when the first division teams broke away in 1992 the EPL bottom is relegated and the two FL toppers are promoted. But a resource and talent exclusivity at the top of the EPL has made it near-impossible for anybody except the Big Four Man U,Chelsea,Arsenal,Liverpool to win the title. Rajasthans triumph over Mumbai,more than the final against Baroda,is perhaps the teams real moment of glory. They have reminded us what talent exists in our domestic cricket and what can be done with it.