With a victory against Himachal Pradesh behind them, Mumbai run into Puducherry in Round Five of the Ranji Trophy Elite Group D, starting at the Wankhede Stadium on Sunday.
Group toppers Mumbai (17 points) will be up against a team that has been in the Ranji Trophy mix since 2018-19 when it became a full member of the BCCI. Puducherry have worked their way up from Plate to Elite, staying there since 2021-22. This will be the first time the two teams meet in the red-ball format. They have played each other in white-ball formats with mixed results.
Udeshi’s Mumbai touch
Puducherry do have some Mumbai flavour. Captain Sagar Udeshi, 39, also doubles up as their coach and mentor. Having played for Puducherry since its inaugural Ranji season, the left-arm spinner hails from Mumbai’s Kalbadevi and has played club cricket for Fort Vijay and Parsee Gymkhana.
“It’s not about luck. That is destiny, [it’s] not in my hands. I am wherever I am supposed to be,” Udeshi said on Saturday. He is their lead bowler this season with 21 wickets in four matches.
It is also a homecoming of sorts for wicketkeeper-batsman Sidhaanth Aadhhathrao, who played for Mumbai last season against Tripura, and fast bowler Aman Khan, who played white-ball cricket for Mumbai in 2020-21 and 2021-22 and in the IPL for KKR and DC.
Puducherry have drawn three games, including taking the first-innings lead against Delhi, and lost one before arriving in Mumbai.
Udeshi, who has 249 first-class wickets, sees this as just another “normal game”. He said: “I am from Mumbai, but never played representative cricket for Mumbai. I look at this as just a normal Ranji game.”
Ranji Trophy returns to Wankhede for the first time since March 2024, when Mumbai won the final against Vidarbha. With the Wankhede being good for batsmen as the ball comes on nicely to the bat, one Mumbai batsman hoping to return to form is Sarfaraz Khan, the Test discard who has scored only 111 runs at 22.20 this season without a single fifty.
Sarfaraz, 28, said on Saturday: “We are getting a chance to play on such a wicket after a long time. We have a lot of memories here. If you look at my record, I have made a lot of runs. I have been making runs for the last five years, including 1000-plus runs in a season.”
High praise for skipper
Sarfaraz credited the support from his teammates, including captain Shardul Thakur. He said: “I’ve played under many captains. Shardul puts the team ahead of himself. He bats at No. 8 or 9, stops himself after bowling two overs because there are others who can do better on the pitch. This shows there is only one thing on his mind — winning the Ranji Trophy. I am enjoying playing under such a captain.”
Mumbai have made one change from the squad that defeated HP last week, bringing back off-spinning all-rounder Tanush Kotian, who was on India ‘A’ duty in Bengaluru and have left out Himanshu Singh.