Jammu & Kashmir shocked domestic heavyweights Mumbai with a historic four-wicket win by chasing down 237 on the last day at the Wankhede Stadium
Devashish Fuloria at the Wankhede Stadium10-Dec-2014
Scorecard1:45
Agarkar: One of the biggest shocks for Mumbai
It would have made perfect sense had the Jammu & Kashmir players charged from the sidelines once Obaid Haroon called Hardeep Singh for the winning single. Or if they had danced in the middle like a team that had just won a World Cup. Or if loud shrieks of joy had burst in the dressing room as the team assembled for a meeting. All would have been appropriate and fitting for the scale of their achievement, for Mumbai had only lost five Ranji matches at the Wankhede in the last 15 years, all of them to major teams.Instead, the J&K group just got up on the feet, shook each other’s hands, embraced, and made a slow approach towards the pitch, as Hardeep took his light blue helmet off after completing the run and raised his bat towards them. They had been sitting by the boundary for a while, anxiously waiting and gorging on bananas, cheering every single without being overtly boisterous. Samiullah Beigh was padded up. He was there too, not inside the dressing room. Still, the muted reaction was quite a contradiction after they had brought a legendary team down on its turf.The only time it looked like the players were excited was when the news filtered that Sachin Tendulkar was in the Mumbai dressing room and the J&K players, most of whom were in Mumbai for the first time ever, could get a chance to meet him in person. Most of them ran back to the dressing room, waiting for Tendulkar to emerge and greet them. However, they were left a tad disappointed as Tendulkar left after a brief meet-up with their coach, Sunil Joshi, and their media manager. It was a minor low on a day of highs though and this team is pretty good in handling lows.Parvez Rasool on…
How their preparation was affected by floods…
“We lost a month of practice because of floods. The guys prepared themselves mentally after that and made do with practice wherever possible. The guys from Jammu played in Jammu. The guys from Srinagar also moved elsewhere. It’s good that even after such adversity, we were able to perform well. We also had a 15-day camp in Nagpur and that helped us all. Our coach’s hardwork and experience had an impact on the boys too.”
Losing out on home advantage…
“Every team gets home advantage. Last year we won three out of four of our home matches. This year we don’t have a home game, but we will have to manage with whatever we have with us.”
Beating Mumbai in Mumbai…
“We did so well here without much preparation, it’s a big thing for us. One thing this proves is that our players have a lot of potential. If they get good facilities and infrastructure, they can grow further.”
In the build-up to the season, the region was ravaged by devastating floods. When other teams were getting their pre-season preparations sorted, a J&K player was attending a funeral of a friend; when players around the country were spending time in gymnasiums, some J&K players were busy clearing up the mess the floods had left behind; when teams would have been planning of their home-match strategies, the J&K players had no clue where their home venue would be. As the water receded, J&K, among the big boys for the first time, realised they didn’t have a home advantage to exploit this year. All their games were to be away matches, against Mumbai, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Bengal and others. It’s one way to travel around the country, but not the one they would have chosen for sure.Playing their first match at the Wankhede would have been nerve-wracking, but the team had taken some confidence from the win against a star-studded Delhi in the Vijay Hazare Trophy earlier this season. Their players, including their impressive seamers, had also been part of the zonal teams this year. The team’s confidence was also boosted, according to one J&K player, as they saw the grass being shaved off from the pitch once the locals had seen their seam attack. That seam-bowling group did go on to make an impression, picking up 14 wickets on what Parvez Rasool thought was a “dead” pitch.Although J&K suffered a collapse in the first innings, a maiden century from Shubham Khajuria, an India Under-19, had ensured they had the lead – a lead in Mumbai. Beat that for a confidence-booster. So when they came out on the fourth morning with nine wickets in hand, 179 adrift of a historical win, they knew they had the wares to go all the way. An early wicket was lost, a 52-run partnership followed. Another wicket, then another partnership.Shardul Thakur tested Khajuria and Rasool with a bounce barrage, with his aggressive stares, with his frequent conversations, but then he sprayed it wide down the leg side for four and it signalled a change of momentum. Next over, the 46th, Khajuria whipped two superbly-timed boundaries, against the turn of Vishal Dabholkar, through midwicket. Then Rasool reverse-swept in the same over to pick up four more. But J&K have seen things are never that simple. They had lost five wickets for one run in the first innings; today they lost both set batsmen at the same score. Khajuria chipped one back to Iqbal Abdulla and Rasool was bowled round his legs by Dabholkar.Waseem Raza joined Hardeep ahead of Haroon and Beigh, a surprise move that seemed to have added hesitation among the batsmen rather than trouble the opposition. Twice, the two batsmen argued after completing ill-advised singles. There was hesitation a third time too, but Raza, going for a second, was well short of a throw from third man. However, the two had added a vital 44.There is nothing that gives as much relief to the batting team, and annoys the bowlers at the same time, as an outside edge. Hardeep got one through the vacant first slip off Thakur. Once that gap was plugged, Haroon got another through second slip off the same bowler. Those two edges had a finality to them; there were no more jitters and J&K strolled through, Hardeep playing a dogged hand of 41*.”Hardeep is a senior player. He won a game last year as well, against Goa,” Rasool said after the win. “We were expecting him to draw from his experience and deliver for us. Shubham [Khajuria] played a tremendous innings. He has played India Under-19 and scored 160-odd at that level. We brought him from that level because we needed someone at the top. He has had a good impact since his arrival.”Beating Mumbai in Mumbai is a big thing. But our graph has been going up for the last three years. People said that we will know the difference between Plate and Elite leagues this time, but this win will serve as an answer to them, and proves that we can play at this level.”There was that same calmness in Rasool’s voice that had been in his team’s body language at the win. It was an indication that J&K had not lost the perspective that this still was going to be a tough tournament for them. It was also a sign that they were not overawed by the gigantic steel and concrete structure that can, at times, be suffocating for visiting teams. But perhaps for a team hardened by tough experiences within and beyond the cricket field, a win against Mumbai in Mumbai was not an emotional big deal. It was just a matter of fact.