Underdogs Kerala have one final chapter to complete in their epic campaign
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Like a wise person once said, 'the underdog story is always the best story'. The Kerala men's cricket team have reached the final pages of their spectacular story, and while just being in the final of the Ranji Trophy for the first time makes theirs a bestseller, Sachin Baby's underdogs will aim to turn it into an epic with a win.
Over the next five days, their opponents in Nagpur are mighty Vidarbha, two-time winners and losing finalists from last season. Vidarbha have also been in the top-four of India's premier domestic competition on at least three other occasions. Kerala don't have that sort of a rich pedigree. For the South Indian state, playing the semifinal in itself had been a remarkable achievement, considering they had only reached that stage once before, in 2018-19, since debuting in the Ranji Trophy in 1957.
Then there is the diverging paths the two sides took to reach the final. Vidarbha won eight of their nine matches, drawing the odd one to Gujarat last November. Akshay Wadkar's side avenged their loss to Mumbai in last year's final by knocking out the record winners in the semifinals. It was a solid 80-run win made possible by a 113-run lead in the first innings. Vidarbha had crushed Tamil Nadu by a whopping 198 runs in the quarterfinals.
In contrast, Kerala rode their luck on multiple occasions to reach the final. Throughout the season, Kerala won just three matches and drew seven times, including in the knockout stages. Kerala famously secured a 1-run lead against Jammu & Kashmir to progress to the semifinal and then bagged a 2-run lead over Gujarat to reach the final.
Vidarbha have been like a ruthless machine throughout the campaign, leading the charts in batting and bowling figures. Two of their batters are placed in the top ten for leading run-getters. Left-hander Yash Rathod is third on the list with 933 runs from 16 innings. Captain Wadkar has 674 runs, while Malayali guest player Karun Nair has accumulated 642.
Only two Kerala batters have scored more than 600 runs -- Salman Nizar (607) and Mohammed Azharuddeen (601), who also share the three centuries scored by the southern side this season. Vidarbha batters hit 13 centuries this Ranji season, with Rathod scoring five.
On the bowling front, Vidarbha's Harsh Dubey is miles ahead in the wicket-takers list, with 66 scalps, 22 more than the next-best pair of Auqib Nabi of J&K and Shams Mulani of Mumbai.
The combined tally of Kerala's leading wicket-takers, Jalaj Saxena (38) and Aditya Sarwate (30), is only just two wickets more than Dubey's, which shows how vital the 22-year-old left-arm spinner has been for Vidarbha on his first full season.
While Vidarbha have the numbers and a history to match, Kerala have made their own luck with grit and perseverance. It would be a big mistake if Vidarbha underestimated Team Kerala because they are the underdogs, and underdogs have nothing to lose but everything to gain.