Bravo Jharkhand

(Copied from my other blog where it was posted on 05-04-2011)

Surpirse Surprise! Jharkhand are the winners of Vijay Hazare Trophy. This is the national tournamnet for 50 Overs One Day Cricket. The final was held on March 1, 2011 and Jharkhand beat Gujarat comfortably by a huge margin of 159 runs. Not many noticed this with the WC going on at the same time.

I have been following Jharkhand cricket closely ever since the state was formed. Initially there was no Jharkhand team in the domestic cricket as there were some disputes withing the Bihar Cricket Association out of which Jharkhand Cricket Association was to be formed. This dragged on for couple of years and the cricketers suffered. A bitter battle was ensuing.

All was well after some time and finally Jharkhand came on the domestic circuit. MSD played for Jharkhand for a couple of seasons before he became too busy with the national team. As a team Jharkhand is a young unit and they have never made it to the Super League of Ranji Trophy. They languish in the Plate League and continue to languish there and will continue to languish there for quite some time.

Their performance in this year's Ranji Trophy Plate league proves what I am saying. They were handed innings defeats by MP and Goa. They narrowly escaped defeat against Rajasthan as Rajasthan had no time on the last day of the match to score the 27 runs required to win. They drew with Hyderabad and then their only win came against the lowly placed Tripura. They escaped with a draw in the 2 matches because of Ishank Jaggi's stuning batting performance and SP Gautam's dour batting display.

It is always the case of one or two brilliant performance here and there. No consistent performance from any players (With the exception of Gautam and Jaggi). Saurabh Tiwary never made big runs in the Ranji Trophy on a consistent basis. He shone because of IPL and he got into IPL because he was an under 19 India player. Even if one looks at his performance in the Ranji Trophy after he came to prominence, it was just average. But there is one thing about Saurabh Tiwary that needs to be admired. Players who have a chance of making it to national team often move out of their home state if their home state is in the plate league and finds it difficult to qualify for the super league. This is because performances in the plate league have virtually no weight when compared to runs scored in the super league. But Saurabh Tiwary stuck to Jharkhand and even said openly that he takes pride in playing for his home state and would never move out for the sake of recognition. Thats Ethics. Kudos to this young man.

Then there is Ishank Jaggi, a dasher of a batsman with a flamboyant personality. His heroics earned him a place with RCB in IPL, but they never gave him a chance. Jaggi can shred any attack to pieces if he applies his mind rather than heart. He can be compared with former Karnataka opener J Arun Kumar. Loads of talent but lack of focus. JAK missed India bus because he quite too often lacked focus in his play. Jaggi is still young but he is showing all the signs of going the JAK way. Hope he gets it right and scores consistently.

Varun Aaron, Shabaz Nadeem and Kumar Deobrat Singh are the products of the proper youth cricket system put in place by JCA and are the latest entrants into the Jharkhand team. All 3 of them have put in a creditable performance in the tournament. The point to be noted is that in Vijay Hazare Trophy, Jharkhand shone in both batting and bowling, whereas earlier in all formats it used to be batting only with mediocre bowling with exception to the lion hearted Mihir Diwakar.

Jharkhand qualified from East Zone with a 100% win record which in itself is an amazing feat. Then in the Quarter Finals they stunned Mumbai and then itself I guessed Jharkhand would go all the way (My hunch was based on the fact that in the QF of Ranji Trophy Rajasthan knocked Mumbai out and went on to win it). It was a great match where the toughness and grittiness of Jharkhand came to the fore.

A creditable bowling performance saw Mumbai being restricted to 213. Yajuvendra Krishnatry, Subroto Ghosh, Varun Aaron and Keshav Kumar stifled Mumbai's star batsmen, choked them and picked up 2 wickets apiece. While chasing Jharkhand found themselves in trouble when the ever reliable wicket keeper Shiv Prakash Gautam was dismissed for a first ball duck and the score read 115 for 6. But all this tournament the team had found someone or the other to take up the challenge and this time 18 year old Kumar Deobrat took up the challenge and blunted the Mumbai attack in the company of another youngster Shabaz Nadeem. Both of them slowly but surely took Jharkhand forward. Shabaz hit some lusty blows and was dismissed for 46 and Deobrat took it forward from there to give Jharkhand a 3 wicket victory. It was a wonderful performance from Jharkhand and from Kumar Deobrat. The 18 year old showed tremendous composure and patience to score a match winning unbeaten 66.

In contrast to the QF, Jharkhand had it relatively easy in the Semi Finals against Vidarbha and won the match by 5 wickets with 28 deliveries remaining. Vidarbha were restricted to 186 with Yajuvendra Krishnatry picking up 3 wickets and Subroto Ghosh 2. Jharkhand chased it down comfortably with their 2 star batsmen Ishank Jaggi and Saurabh Tiwary scoring85 and 72 not out respectively.

By now Jharkahnd was a well oiled unit and there was no stopping them. They virtually steamrolled Gujarat in the final and won the match by a huge margin of 159 runs. Batting first they put up a neat score of 255 with that man Ishank Jaggi again scoring a patient innings building knock of 58. Kumar Deobrat supported him well with a fine 52. Then Shiv Prakash Gautam and Varun Aaron added 51 runs in 23 balls to give the finishing touches. Gautam remained unbeaten on 35 of 23 and Aaron was out for 34 of only 16 deliveries. While chasing Gujarat lost their openers with only 6 runs on board. Then Manpreet Juneja and Niraj Patel put up a good partnership and the score read 74/2 after 15.3 overs. And when the last ball of the 24th over was bowled Gujarat were all out for 96! They were blown away by the left arm off spin bowling of Shabaz Nadeem who finished with an unbelievable spell of 4-1-6-4 which gave him the Man of the Match prize.

Vijay Hazare trophy falls into the lap of Jharkhand. Nobody would have foreseen this. Just like the Ranji Trophy, the Vijay Hazare trophy too has an unexpected winner. Fancied teams have fallen by the wayside. That really has added the much needed spice to the domestic cricket scene in India.

Bravo Jharkhand!