Ranji Trophy 2015: Mumbai ride on Aditya Tare-Shreyas Iyer show, run over Railways

It was a day of cricket that provided happy memories, confidence boosts, valuable little lessons, and bitter-sweet disappointments. Herwadkar, who struggled to get a consistent run with Mumbai in the last four years, would cherish the memory of the day and the season where he has sealed a spot and impressed his team-mates. Tare pocketed the confident feeling of a captain who knows his team isn’t mentally brittle, and of his own serene batting under pressure. Iyer would be perky after yet another fearless knock and also wiser about playing on a pitch that had enough rough to really test him. And Karn Sharma would take the bitter-sweet memories from this.

Iyer’s battle against Sharma

It makes sense to first dwell on Iyer as he has really been the flavour of this domestic season. With Sharma honing in repeatedly on the rough on a length outside leg stump from round the stumps for nearly every ball, Iyer was put under the kosh. Iyer is a batsman who doesn’t think of bare survival at the best of the times and he wasn’t going to get meeker in a run-chase situation. And so, he went for it.

It made for a riveting watch. Twinkling feet, twirling bat, and an insatiable urge to keep attacking vs looping legbreaks. Even the kicking away of the ball was thrilling. There were no long strides, the upper body didn’t stretch out, the bat wasn’t tucked behind the pad – Jimmy Adams, whose pads were more identifiable than his bat in India, would have choked on his jerk chicken if he were watching. Instead, the right leg would pop up to kick the turning ball, the left leg would occasionally shove away the ball.

However, Iyer isn’t a kicker but a basher who chose riskier options for the majority of time. Off he sashayed down the track, whipping against the break, his bat sliding through the rough. On a many an occasion, he pulled off his wristy-whips and that pick-up shot towards wide midwicket that he seems to come naturally to him. Also, and not unsurprisingly, on more than couple of occasions, the ball lobbed off the leading edge and landed just over cover fielder, leaving Sharma shaking his head. Twice the ball squirted dangerously close to short-leg, and once, it even darted straight to the fielder but it was too.

It’s pertinent here to re-iterate that this wasn’t a dustbowl but a regular fourth-day track with the usual wear and tear but his all-out aggressive approach was bound to pose a few heart-on-the-mouth moments. All in all, it must have been a learning experience for Iyer to know how much he can extend himself on tracks like this.

It wasn’t all Iyer of course. In fact, it was Herwadkar who lit the fire first in the chase, with his aggressive approach.

Expectedly, it wasn’t without mistakes. Mahesh Rawat, Haryana captain and keeper, missed couple of tough stumping chances, triggering more sighs and hands-on-hip from Sharma, who also buried his head in his palms once after the long-on fielder dropped a simple chance off Herwadkar. But the left-hander stuck to his approach, driving, sweeping and cutting to push Mumbai ahead.

Railways’ had to get their moment under the sun and it came through the left-arm spinner SS Mishra who induced caught-and-bowled chances that he grabbed safely from Herwadkar and Suryakumar Yadav. Finally, Sharma sucked an advancing Iyer to slice a legbreak to deepish cover and at tea, Mumbai had needed 95 runs and suddenly, the target looked a touch difficult.

There were a couple of nervy moments for Mumbai on the last lap to victory. Not long after tea, there was a confident shout for catch-behind against Lad off the offspinner Arnab Nandi, with Rawat averring later that there was leather on wood. There was also a dropped catch, 69 runs away from the target, a tough lunging chance that the extra-cover couldn’t hang on off who else but Sharma. And that was that. With a tired Sharma, and increasingly-slowing pitch, Railways had to watch Tare and Lad produce a fine pressure-soaking partnership that saw scampered singles, smart two’s, the odd boundaries, and the final leap of joy from Mumbai captain Tare.

Brief scores: Railways 217 & 408/4 dec. (S Wakaskar 185, V Cheluvaraj 133 not out; V Dabholkar 3/115) lost to Mumbai 331 & 295 for 4 (S Iyer 91, A Tare not out 71, S Lad not out 41; S Mishra 2 for 53) by six wickets