Madhya Pradesh chases Ranji history, in attacking mode vs Mumbai

BHOPAL: Will Madhya Pradesh lift the Ranji Trophy for the first time in 88 years of India’s biggest domestic tournament? This was the talk of the town when MP began their campaign against 41-time champs Mumbai in the final on Wednesday.
MP has reached the Ranji finals once earlier, in 1999, under the captaincy of Chandrakant Pandit. MP lost to Karnataka by 96 runs that year.Again on the threshold of history, 23 years later, Pandit is now the MP coach.
On Wednesday, living up to the billings, an unheralded bunch of Madhya Pradesh bowlers stuck to the plan as a star-studded Mumbai side toiled its way to 248 for five on the first day of the finals.
Five of the MP XI are from Bhopal — Aditya Srivastava, Puneet Date, Anubhav Agarwal, Rahul Batham and Arham Aqueel. Three are from Indore — Shubham Sharma, Rajat Patidar and Saransh Jain. The three others are Yash Dubey from Jabalpur, Gaurav Yadav from Hoshangabad, and Kumar Kartikeya from UP.
Anubhav and Saransh took two wickets each and Kartikeya bagged one. Anubhav snapped up both openers and broke the opening Mumbai partnership of 87 runs by castling Prithvi Shaw.
Coaches feel the MP team has what it takes to win the title. On the first day’s play, senior coach JP Yadav said, “The MP team stuck to the basics and played an excellent game. This can be gauged from the fact that despite having a strong opening partnership of 87 runs between Prithvi Shaw and Yashasvi Jaiswal, the MP bowlers did not allow the hosts to take the upper hand. This was possible because of a disciplined bowling attack and good captaincy.”
Yadav, who is the first coach of MP captain Aditya Shrivastava, pointed out that Mumbai’s Sarfaraz Khan is in good form and MP bowlers need to get him early on Thursday to restrict Mumbai from getting a big total. “MP bowlers displayed good skill; they have to continue it tomorrow and end the Mumbai innings early,” added Yadav. At stumps, Sarfaraz Khan (40), and Shams Mulani (12) were at the crease.