The Gujarat skipper played a superb knock of 143 that guided his team win their first-ever Ranji Trophy beating defending champions Mumbai by five wickets.
Parthiv Patel was the toast of Gujarat's historical win at the Holkar Stadium in Indore.
It was in this city that Gujarat had made its only Ranji Trophy final before Saturday in 1950-51, only to lose that game to Holkars.
But this time it was not to be a repeat of history. No, not even if the opponents were masters of the championship — Mumbai.
The Gujarat skipper played a superb knock of 143 that guided his team win their first-ever Ranji Trophy beating defending champions Mumbai by five wickets.
Obviously, the hero of the day was overjoyed with the trophy and the praises lavished on him as his teammates lifted him on their shoulders, much like how Men in Blue had honoured Sachin Tendulkar after they won the 2011 World Cup at the Wankhede Stadium.
For Parthiv, the knock that came in 196 balls and included 24 hits to the fence, will be at the top.
"It was the final day of the match and if you score when it is needed the most... I have played a few knocks like this but this would be right up there, there is no doubt about it," Parthiv said calmly after the game.
The Gujarat skipper was aware of history in making, but did not think much about it while going into the finals.
"When you don't reach the final for so many years, you do remember it. But we knew it. That's something which was never in our mind. We just wanted to play well and play good cricket."
Describing the chase, Parthiv said the focus was on playing most numbers of overs than bother about scoring.
"Honestly, we weren't thinking about runs at all. We just wanted to make sure that we play 100 overs. If we play 100 overs, we are anyway going to get 250-260 runs, on a red soil wicket, usually, it is very difficult to stop the runs.
"If we would have got a good start, we would have played normally but we lost three wickets early. That is when I changed the tactic and tried and play a bit aggressive so that I can counter-attack."
The joy would have been double had Parthiv scored the winning runs, but he said it did not matter much. "That's part of it but in the end, winning is more important than personal glory."
The 31-year-old said his team had the faith that they would win Ranji one day.
"When you have so much of talent in your state, you would end up winning. Yes, there were a few frustrating years for us when we didn't qualify, we missed out on quotient or run-rate, but we knew that we have a team that can win the Ranji Trophy and we have always been talking about it amongst us.
"And we can only talk about it if we believe that we can win it. And we always knew that we can win it, and we have got the results to show for it," he said.
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