My best final ever, gushes Jaffer
Wasim Jaffer won the Ranji Trophy in his first season as Mumbai captain last year, and after marshalling the defending champions’ 39th triumph on Thursday, said the final against Karnataka, which his team won by six runs, was one of the best he was involved in.
“We were made to work really hard this season. It was a really indifferent one but we improved our performances from the quarterfinals. From the Haryana game, we played outstanding cricket. We came here and played fantastic cricket against all the odds. This is one of the best finals that I have played,” the right-handed opener told newsmen.
Mumbai were under the cosh on the fourth morning when Manish Pandey and Ganesh Satish were engaged in a double-century stand for the fourth wicket. “All of us believed that if one wicket fell, things would become different because the wicket wasn’t good to bat on and the new ball was not far away. At that point of time, Iqbal (Abdulla) bowled really well,” Jaffer said.
“You also need to give credit to both the guys, they played really well. Manish has had a fantastic season but we knew there is always pressure chasing. We thought if we got one wicket, we would get two or three quick wickets which is exactly what happened.”
Ajit Agarkar took five wickets in Karnataka’s second innings and Jaffer said his presence in the side made a huge difference. “It does matter when you have international quality players in your side,” Jaffer pointed out. “The way Ramesh Powar batted in the second innings to score those crucial 28 runs... And then Ajit. You need experience in such crunch games and they proved just how important they are to the side.”
Batting first
Explaining the rationale behind Mumbai batting first, he said, “We almost always go in thinking of batting first because once you have that score on the board and you play with five bowlers, it puts pressure on the opposition. That’s the way we won the quarters and the semis and we didn’t want to change it for the final. We knew we had to bat really well in the first session, and we backed ourselves to do that. “We knew if we batted well, we would get through the tough moments. That proved really important because batting got really difficult after that.”
