Mumbai Colts lose by 310 runs in Cooch Behar Trophy

MUMBAI: Mumbai cricket seems to have hit a new low these days. The Ranji Trophy team, led by Abhishek Nayar, conceded a first innings lead to bottom-placed Jharkhand the other day and lost out on precious points as they look to seal their place in the knock-outs.
The Mumbai Under-25 team lost to Punjab after being asked to follow on in the Col CK Nayudu Trophy recently and on Wednesday, in Baroda, Mumbai's Under-19 team went down to the hosts by a massive 310 runs.
In an earlier fixture of the Cooch Behar Trophy, the colts had conceded a 288-run first innings lead against Tamil Nadu. With such poor results, progression to the next round looks unlikely unless there is a miracle.
There could be a bigger humiliation in store: Relegation to the plate division. While there have been good individual performances, the team has failed to click as a unit.
Mumbai coach Vinod Raghawan felt that the boys failed to apply themselves. "Our batting let us down. The boys practically threw their wickets, going for expansive strokes. Their mindset was to get their runs in boundaries. They simply didn't want to take singles and twos. In a nutshell, we failed when it came to application," Raghawan said.
He was also unfortunate to lose a few strike bowlers to injury. Medium-pacer Atul Singh had to be rested because of an injury. Left-arm spinner and the highest wicket taker in the last season, Amit Kadam also was indisposed. Ibrahim Qazi suffered a side strain after bowling just 3.3 overs in the first innings and he couldn't bowl after that.
"Injuries are part and parcel of the game but it was unfortunate that all our strike bowlers got injured at the same time. We had to make do with the resources at hand," Raghawan said.
Mumbai now have two matches in hand - one against Kerala and one against Madhya Pradesh. They will need to play out of their skins to qualify. They will also encounter alien conditions as both games are scheduled away.
In short, there is simply no margin for error.
Brief scores:
Baroda: 279 and 328 (Jignesh Solanki 49, Deepak Hooda 89, Kartik Kakade not out 64; Jay Bista 3-75) defeated Mumbai: 144 and 153 (Sarfaraz Khan 61; Vikas Yadav 3-28) by 310 runs.