Mumbai find a way to ensure the Vidarbha miracle wasn't to be

After the 114th over of Vidarbha's innings, Mumbai allrounder Musheer Khan swapped the bails on each end. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

Exactly 23 years ago, on March 14, 2001, VVS Laxman and Rahul Dravid had written the first chapter of the greatest comeback in Test history. In the second Test against Australia at Eden Gardens, they batted the whole fourth day and turned the match, and the series, around.

Now Akshay Wadkar, the Vidarbha captain, and Harsh Dubey, the spin-bowling allrounder, were threatening to pull off a similar heist. Chasing an unprecedented 538 in the Ranji Trophy final, they had steered Vidarbha to 304 for 5.

Aditya Sarwate, another spin-bowling allrounder, was yet to bat but he had a dodgy back. So Mumbai knew that one wicket would effectively end the match.

Musheer's trick seemed to have worked when he rapped Dubey on the pads and the umpire raised his finger. But even before Mumbai could start celebrating, Dubey asked for the DRS. The UltraEdge showed a clear inside edge, and Vidarbha continued with their Mission Impossible.

Apart from keeping an eye on the scoreboard, Wadkar was also observing his counterpart to gauge his team's progress.

"They [Mumbai] were having discussions since yesterday, when Karun [Nair] and I were batting," Wadkar later said. "They were making the bowling changes, the field changes. But I was observing their captain, [Ajinkya] Rahane. What are his expressions? Is he talking harshly to his bowlers? That would have been an indication that we were getting close."

Rahane had looked calm all this while. Not just that, he was also pacifying his players, especially offspinner Tanush Kotian, whenever the ball hit the pads and they insisted on reviewing it.

The first signs of unease showed up when Rahane was seen talking to Kotian, Dhawal Kulkarni and Prithvi Shaw, with Shams Mulani also there as a bystander. An over later, the 12th man ran in with a message from the dressing room, followed by Rahane giving instructions to Musheer who was about to bowl next.

Just before lunch, Rahane turned to Tushar Deshpande for "the short-ball therapy". Bowling around the stumps, Deshpande angled one across Wadkar, who went for the pull but could hit it only for one. He let out an expletive in frustration.

Dubey, however, did not enjoy the bouncer barrage. He fended the first one, which lobbed just in front of him. Deshpande had no chance of getting there.

It prompted Rahane to put a short leg in place. Deshpande went short again but missed his line. It was so down the leg side that even if Dubey had not ducked, he would have been safe.

"Darr gaye, darr gaye [they are scared]," a spectator shouted from the stands just before Deshpande let go of another bouncer. This one was on target but Dubey had no trouble ducking under it. On the last ball of the over, Deshpande had Dubey hopping but could not dislodge him.

Vidarbha went to lunch at 333 for 5. The target was still 205 runs away but they seemed to have taken big steps towards it by adding 85 for no loss in the session.

Wadkar was leading from the front. Before the final, he had scored seven half-centuries in the season. He brought up his eighth on Wednesday evening, levelling with Kerala's Sachin Baby for most 50-plus scores this Ranji Trophy.

But there was a glaring void in Wadkar's record. He had failed to convert any of those fifties into a hundred. Something he looked determined to correct this time.

Batting in his own way - using feet against both spinners and fast bowlers - he had moved to 92 at lunch. While Nair, who had set up the chase with a dogged 74, struggled against spin, Wadkar's handling of it was exemplary. He made sure he intercepted the ball outside the line of off stump as often as possible to take lbw out of the equation.

In the third over after lunch, he pushed Kotian through extra cover to bring up his ninth first-class hundred. His first had also come in a Ranji Trophy final, against Delhi in 2017-18, and had helped Vidarbha win their first title.

But there was no repeat this time. With the target 185 runs away, Kotian trapped him lbw for 102. Wadkar's front foot was once again outside the line of off stump, but Kotian was now bowling stump to stump from around the wicket. Wadkar found himself playing across the line and missed the ball.

The dhol group that had been waiting in the stands since morning finally had an opportunity to get into the action.

The celebrations did not stop after that. In the next over, Deshpande had Dubey caught at backward short leg. The attempted bouncer got up only to the rib height but Dubey failed to keep it down.

Vidarbha fought till the very end. A ball after being hit on the helmet, Yash Thakur pulled Deshpande over deep square leg for a six.

With nine wickets down, Rahane gave the ball to Kulkarni. Kulkarni was playing his last first-class match, but if Mohit Avasthi, Mumbai's leading wicket-taker before the final, had not got injured, he would not have got a farewell game.

Kulkarni was not expecting to bowl as Deshpande had picked up two wickets in two overs. But this was his moment. On the opening day, the Mumbai players had given him a guard of honour. Throughout the match, fans were carrying his posters. Some were even wearing a T-shirt with his photo on it.

With his third ball, Kulkarni hit Umesh Yadav's leg stump and stretched his arms wide to soak it all in.

This was Kulkarni's sixth Ranji Trophy final, and he finished on the winning side in five of them. The first of those had come in his debut season, in 2008-09, when a 20-year-old Kulkarni had similarly taken the final wicket to seal the title.

The latest title was Mumbai's 42nd in the Ranji Trophy but their first since 2015-16. They are not used to such a drought. They had a chance in 2022 but lost to Madhya Pradesh in the final. Last season, they failed to qualify for the knockouts because of one run. All that made this victory special, sweeter.

Rahane had one last move to make as captain. The trend in Indian cricket these days is that the newest member of the squad lifts the trophy. But Rahane gestured to Kulkarni, his team-mate from the Under-14 days and room-mate for many years, to come forward to take the trophy from him.

The season could not have ended on a better note - neither for Dhawal nor for Mumbai.