Ranji Trophy 2015-16 champions Mumbai will take on Rest of India in the ZR Irani Cup match at the Cricket Club of India in Mumbai from March 6 in the last match of the longest format this season.
The only team to not lose a single match in the Ranji Trophy league phase besides Bengal, Mumbai went on to lift the coveted trophy by beating Saurashtra in the final in Pune. The Aditya Tare-led team went from strength to strength as they cantered to the final. After conceding the first innings lead to Andhra in their opening match of the season, the team regrouped to beat Punjab and Tamil Nadu in Mumbai. There was no looking back from there on as they outplayed oppositions to finish at the top of their group. They then beat Jharkhand in the quarter-final and Madhya Pradesh in the semi-final before defeating the Jaydev Shah-led team in less than three days to reclaim the trophy.
The ROI comprising some of the best cricketers from India’s domestic circuit and led by Naman Ojha, will test Mumbai in the season finale in a five-day game.
While Naman himself has been a vital cog in Madhya Pradesh’s batting lineup, J & K’s Ian Dev Singh, who is at No 5 in the top run-getters list in Ranji Trophy’s 2015-16 season, will strengthen the batting lineup. While Vidarbha’s experienced campaigner Faiz Fazal can provide ROI with a solid start, they also have Saurashtra’s top-scorer Sheldon Jackson among their ranks besides Karun Nair, Sudeep Chatterjee, KS Bharat and all-rounder Stuart Binny.
On the other hand, three of Mumbai’s batsmen, who are in the top five of the Ranji season’s highest run-getters list have blunted various oppositions throughout the season. Leading the charts is Shreyas Iyer with 1321 runs while Akhil Herwadkar is at No 2 with 879 and Suryakumar Yadav is at No 4 with 788 runs. They have been ably complemented by Siddhesh Lad and Tare besides useful contributions from rest of the lineup which has been strengthened by the inclusion of Jay Bista, who scored a double century in the U-23 CK Nayudu Trophy final.
While Iyer became the only batsman other than VVS Laxman to score 1300 runs in a Ranji Trophy season, Tare also rewrote the books in the ongoing season as he goes head-to-head with Naman. His 48 dismissals in the 2015-16 season created a record for the most dismissals for a wicketkeeper, bettering KS Bharat’s tally of 46 for Andhra in 2014-15.
Mumbai’s deep and strong batting lineup will be tested by ROI’s bowling. They have the likes of Shahbaz Nadeem, Krishna Das, Akshay Wakhare, Jaydev Unadkat, Anureet Singh and Ankit Rajpoot in their squad.
While the experienced left-arm spinner, Nadeem is the highest wicket-taker with 51 wickets in the season, pacer Krishna is at No 2 with 50 wickets and the ambidextrous Wakhare is at No 5 in the wicket-taker’s list with 49 wickets. The squad is also bolstered by the presence of the inform left-arm pacer Unadkat at No 8 with 40 wickets.
Mumbai’s Shardul Thakur, who holds the No 7 spot in the wicket-taker’s list this season with 41 wickets, has been the leading wicket-taker for Mumbai for second time in a row. The Mumbai pace attack is strengthened by the presence of Dhawal Kulkarni this season who charted Saurashtra’s down fall in the first innings in the final. The spin department has Vishal Dabholkar and Iqbal Abdullah while part-timers like Akhil Herwadkar too have chipped in when called upon to help the team’s cause which bodes well for the Ranji Trophy champions.
Mumbai, who last won the Cup in 1997-98 (playing as Bombay) will be keen to reverse the results when they take the field on Sunday morning. The last time ROI lifted the Cup was when the Harbhajan Singh-led team beat the Ajit Agarkar-led Mumbai in 2012-13 and since have lost to Karnataka who dominated the domestic circuit for the last two seasons.
Squads:
Rest of India: KS Bharat, Faiz Fazal, Karun Nair, Sheldon Jackson, Naman Ojha (Captain), Stuart Binny, Shahbaz Nadeem, Jayant Yadav, Jaydev Unadkat, Krishna Das, Sudeep Chatterjee, Ian Dev Singh, Akshay Wakhare, Anureet Singh & Ankit Rajpoot (replacements for Nathu Singh & Barinder Sran).
Mumbai: Aditya Tare (Captain), Abhishek Nayar, Dhaval Kulkarni, Shreyas Iyer, Suryakumar Yadav, Akhil Herwadkar, Siddhesh Lad, Sufiyan Shaikh, Nikhil Patil (Jr.), Iqbal Abdullah, Shardul Thakur, Balwinder Singh Sandhu (Jr.), Badre Alam, Bhavin Thakkar, Vishal Dabholkar, Jay Bista.
