The cloud does have a silver lining for Mumbai as their disappointing domestic season finally had something to cheer about. The under-19 team of the domestic giants defeated Maharashtra in the final of the Cooch Behar Trophy on Tuesday at the Wankhede to win their first title of the season.
This is the seventh time that Mumbai has won this trophy.
Chasing an improbable target of 462, Maharashtra were 179 for three when both captains agreed for a draw with 17 over remaining to be bowled for the fourth and last day of the match to end. Mumbai were declared winners on the basis of first innings lead.
Earlier in the day, Mumbai, helped by Harmeet Singh’s knock of 65 and steady innings by Atif Attarwala (47) and Pratik Prabhu (44), posted a total of 439. For the visitors, Chirag Khurana took four for 103 and Satyajit Bachchav picked up three for 77.
Harmeet claimed that the main challenge for his team was to ensure that each and every individual gives his 100 per cent to the game. In the first innings, the hosts were off to a disastrous start scoring 173. However, that didn’t demoralise the team.
“We made sure that all our efforts and the practice shouldn’t go waste. We kept motivating ourselves,” said Harmeet.
Harmeet, during the championship, had fractured his bowling hand and had missed a couple of games and rejoined the team for the quarterfinals.
“When the tournament had begun everyone was dependent on me but when I returned, I saw a different team. Everyone took it upon themselves to perform and bring home the trophy.”
Coach Satish Sawant believed that it was the team effort that made them win.
“Our main strength is that more than half of our players are all-rounders. So, if one didn’t perform well with the bat, he ensured that he would end up taking wickets,” he said.
Sawant was all praise for Harmeet’s leadership skills.
“Harmeet is a very intelligent cricketer. Whatever coach thinks and suggests needs to be implemented on the field and Harmeet does that. This time I gave him the sole responsibility to take any decision. And you can see the result in front of you.”
And what makes this victory sweeter is that the same team had met in the past in an U-15 tournament and Maharashtra had beaten Mumbai then.
“More-or-less the players were the same. So for Mumbai, it was payback time,” said Sawant.
Brief scores: Mumbai 173 & 439 (J Pardeshi 125, H Singh 65, A Gomel 53; S Bachhav 3/62, C Khurana 4/103) beat Maharashtra 150 & 179 (V Zol 57, S Ranjane 76*; A Herwadkar 2/32)
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