Related Links : Ranji Trophy Super League 2006-07 : Scorecard
The most Prestigious First Class Tournament in India – the Ranji Trophy Championship has been won by Mumbai for the 37th time! Bengal for the second time in the row have fought their way into the finals but have lost it again. Nevertheless, it was a superb fighting spirit shown by Bengal in their second innings as they fell short of the massive 472 runs target by 132 runs.
Bengal did go down fighting on the fourth day of the final at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai. However, it was not as big as a fight that Mumbai had put up to unexpectedly win this season’s championship. It was Pravin Amre’s first season as the Mumbai Coach. He and all Mumbai Cricket followers were in for a rude shock when the team had not even opened its points account after three rounds of matches. Their fourth round match was against Hyderabad which they had lost for the first time in the Championship history and with that the Mumbai team looked good only to be knocked out of the tournament. But things changed drastically from the Gujarat match at the Wankhede. Amol Muzumdar’s team won their next three matches by big margins, they had inflicted innings defeat to all its opponents – Gujarat, Rajasthan and Maharashtra! That was enough for them to grab the semi finals spot!
Mumbai in their semi final match against Baroda looked to be out of the equation when they were bundled out for 233 after they were put in by the homeside. But they made an incredible comeback in the game by bowling out Baroda for a paltry 142 to take the vital first innings lead of 91. Baroda made shortwork of that lead by having Mumbai at a shocking 0 for 5! Vinayak Samant, the wicket keeper came up with the rescue job to help Mumbai reach 142 and thus set a competitive target of 237. The second string bowling attack of Mumbai had enough fire power to defend that target.
For the finals, Mumbai was filled up with their stars. Sachin Tendulkar, Zaheer Khan, Ajit Agarkar and Ramesh Powar who have been freed from their Indian duty, just a few days back were back for their state side. Bengal had their royal tiger – Sourav Ganguly, a man fresh from his second life in International Cricket back. But Dada was once again cleaned by Zaheer for a first ball duck. The Dada-Zaheer battle was like a Graeme Smith-Zaheer battle of the South African tour when Zaheer had dominated the left hander on several occasions. Bengal had earlier squandered the advantage of restricting the hosts to 320 in their first innings despite a brisk century from Sachin Tendulkar (105) and a 112 from Wasim Jaffer. The visitors were shot out for 143 with Zaheer Khan capturing 5 wickets in just 11 overs.
Ranadeb Bose took nine wickets in total for Bengal in the match and his five wicket haul in the 2nd innings saw Mumbai kept under 300. Sachin Tendulkar made 43 this time while Jaffer and young gun Rohit Sharma contributed half centuries to see Mumbai set an impossible target to achieve. Mumbai were kept at bay when Deep Dasgupta, the Skipper and Manonj Tiwary were in the middle but the breakthrough came from medium pacer Wilkin Mota. Deep Dasgupta’s stay came to an end with a personal score of 57 and with Bengal at 153 for 3. In came, Sourav Ganguly on a pair, but the southpaw ensured that he wasn’t going to disappoint this time by sticking together with the 21-year-old Tiwary, who was all guns blazing. Tiwary fell six runs of what could have been his fourth hundred of his first class career. His innings also had a sizzling six off Zaheer Khan. This young Bengal lad must be a sure part of Indian cricket after the World Cup! As long as Tiwary was batting, Ganguly almost had to take a back seat at the other end for most part of the 117-run partnership that provided Bengal a realistic chance of chasing down the 472 runs!
Bengal were 270 for 4 when their two most experienced players Sourav Ganguly and Rohan Gavaskar were at the crease. Gavaskar came good with a brisk innings, but got out at the wrong time for 46 leaving Bengal more than 130 runs to get with five wickets in hand. Bengal had lost two more wickets at the addition of just the one run in the space of six deliveries. That was the match and the title for Mumbai. Bengal required a Ganguly special which was not to be there with Zaheer Khan nailing him for the second time in this match. It still was an appreciable effort from Dada to score a 90 with his team under severe pressure. His was the eight wicket to go down. Zaheer Khan and Ajit Agarkar had paired up to clean up the late resistance from the visitors. Zaheer like Ranadeb picked up 9 wickets in total.