Kerala's Sachin Baby plays a shot during the third day of the Ranji Trophy final cricket match between Kerala and Vidarbha, in Nagpur, Friday, Feb. 28, 2025. (PTI Photo)
For an eternity, Sachin Baby stood frozen on his bent knee. His batting ally Jalaj Saxena let out a shriek in anger so loud that it could have been heard as far as the Wardha Road. But Sachin was too shocked to even scream or shout or curse himself, or to move from his crouched follow-through. He had just played the stroke that could define his career, self-destroying a knock that could have defined his life.
Two runs away from his hundred, 56 runs away from snatching lead in the Ranji final, half his batting colleagues dismissed, he fatally slog-swept Parth Rekhade to deep mid-wicket. It was his lone moment of indiscretion in an innings that lasted 235 balls, where he was the wall of resistance and the fountain of hope that kept Kerala in the game and dragged them to the promised land.
It was the exact second the game took a decisive shift towards Kerala. Psychologically battered, they were shot out for 342 runs, the visitors losing the last four wickets for 18 runs, and handing Vidarbha a lead of 37 valuable runs.
A huge moment in the match❗️
Sachin Baby falls 2 short of his 100. A brilliant knock ends.
Parth Rekhade gets the crucial wicket!
Kerala are 324/7, trailing by 55 runs.#RanjiTrophy | @IDFCFIRSTBank | #Final
Scorecard ▶️ https://t.co/up5GVaflpp pic.twitter.com/EFPJpLER5h
— BCCI Domestic (@BCCIdomestic) February 28, 2025
The rare rash stroke undid his day-long vigil. On a deck that was assuming darker and ominous hues of red, he had seen off the penetrative bowling of Harsh Dubey, and was the steadying hand despite the regular parting of his partners. He seemed immune to the pressure of captaincy and the inexorable expectations vested on him by millions in a state starved of sporting glory.
The stroke was antithetical to the tone of his innings. Maybe, the sight of the hundred seduced him. He was overly focused that he didn’t want the hundred to distract his grand ambition to drag Kerala as far as he could past the Vidarbha total. Maybe, a deluge of thoughts suffocated him. Lead, second new ball, pressure, Dubey, his 100th first class match, an approaching landmark, and his mind lost the absolute clarity that it had exhibited until the moment of chaos. Pressure stoops the toughest of men to folly.
Or perhaps, it was just a simple error in judgement, a case of him not imparting the impetus he wanted on the ball. The ball was there, full, tossed up, pleading to be smashed into the fields of black earth beyond the stadium. He tried to hit the ball a trifle too hard and didn’t find the required timing as it looped in the air to the safe palms of his friend Karun Nair.
It’s the context that paints sportsmen as heroes and tragic heroes. His exit brought Vidarbha back into the game, restoring their hopes of finally grabbing the match by the scruff of its neck. But the reason Kerala was in this juncture was Sachin’s untiring vigil.
For 345 minutes, he batted as though this was his life’s purpose, as though he picked the bat for the first time to live and breathe this moment. To play a match-winning role in his State’s first-ever final in his 100th first-class game. He told this paper before the final: “Whether we win this game or not, it depends on a lot of factors, but we want to play to the outer limits of capabilities.”
Sachin embodied the approach, not because he was the captain but because no one was as desperate as him. “I am 36, I don’t know how long I will be able to play the game, don’t know whether I will ever play in the final. So I don’t want to regret that I didn’t give more than my best for the team. Time is running out.” he had said.
He hardly played a false shot, rarely edged (a rare inside-edge onto his pads helped him survive an lbw on DRS), scarcely played and missed (barring a paddle sweep and an uncharacteristic waft off the second new ball). His unfussy batting brought peace to the audience and frustrated Vidarbha’s toiling bowlers. His game-plan was impossibly simple. He left the balls that were meant to be left. The judgement outside the off-stump was immaculate. He drove — he started the morning with a crisp cover drive off Darshan Nalkande — when the ball was driveable. A short man of small strides, he did not reach out for the ball, but intervened, if at all it needed intervention, at the last second. There was no stroke in angst or impatience. He spent overs without scoring, but his patience remained undiminished.
The spinners were expertly dealt with neat, precise movements. As much as he could, he defended or punched them on the back-foot, pushing them to bowl fuller, whereupon he would drive them through covers, his front foot fully stretched to meet the ball. Bowlers tempted him, with full balls outside off-stump. He resisted. They went short and wide, leaving vast expanses unprotected on the leg-side. He swayed away, apart from a couple of instances wherein he pulled with utter authority. Dubey and Co. dug deep into their manual of deception, but he didn’t wither.
And then to squander it all with a hideous stroke like this, Sachin must have felt that the world is a cruel place. His side, though, should be thankful that he was the reason they are still in the game, even though clutching at the straws. All his batting colleagues perished to misjudgement — Jalaj to a half-baked paddle, Salman Nizar padding up to Dubey, Mohammed Azharudheen missed a flick, Aditya Sarwate sequestered into the shell. But it would be Sachin’s slog of indiscretion that could define the game.
Stay updated with the latest sports news across Cricket, Football, Chess, and more. Catch all the action with real-time live cricket score updates and in-depth coverage of ongoing matches.
