Mumbai: Vidarbha skipper Akshay Wadkar highlighted the reasons for the team’s defeat in the Ranji Trophy final and said that they were weak with the bat despite the partnership between Mumbai skipper Ajinkya Rahane and Musheer Khan. Game away from them.
In the second innings, Vidarbha managed to restrict Mumbai to 34/2 and came to the crease with Musheer Rahane. Both the batsmen added 130 runs to restore Mumbai’s dominance in the game. Shreyas Iyer came and gave more wounds to the Vidarbha team with his brilliant innings of 95(111).
Vidarbha’s rustic batting bowled them out for 105 runs in the first innings. “We had a bad first innings. Our batting was good throughout and after getting Mumbai out early in the first innings, we had to bat well. However, we couldn’t do that and that’s where we missed the mark in this final. We created some chances. – Musheer’s run out chance, and Rahane’s LBW on the umpire’s call. However, that partnership took the game away from us, and then the way Shreyas batted to score quick runs off a few balls, he took the momentum away. (This morning) we just wanted to play it ball by ball, and defend the whole time and try to frustrate them,” Wadkar said after the game.
“If we let them down, they will do some stupid things. We thought this partnership would be the last key partnership because the later batsmen can defend, but it will be harder to score runs. We focused a lot on fielding this season, every On the day we did fielding practice, that’s how we managed to turn some games around this season,” he added.
Wadkar praised Mumbai’s bowling attack. Wadkar said, “Mumbai bowled really well, especially Dhawal Kulkarni. The pitch was difficult to bat on, but the Mumbai batsmen showed a lot of determination.”
On the fifth day, Wadkar and Yash Dubey brought Vidarbha back into the game with a 130-run partnership. After Wadkar’s dismissal, Vidarbha lost its remaining wickets in the next five overs, allowing Mumbai to win the title match by 169 runs. (ANI)
