CHENNAI: WHEN Ishan Kishan walks out with his teammates onto the field at the MA Chidambaram Stadium on Sunday morning against South Zone, it will officially mark East Zone's first Duleep final in 14 years.
Coincidentally, the last time they did was also at the same venue, when they went on to win their second consecutive title in the competition. However, unlike the hot and humid weather on Saturday, and what is expected over the next few days, back then, the pitch and conditions were different. It was October 2012. The North East monsoon had arrived in Chennai when the Natraj Behera-led East team took on a strong Central Zone, captained by Mohammad Kaif, in the final.
The first day was a complete washout. Over the next four days, despite intermittent showers and interruptions, East and Central played a cat and mouse game on the field. Ishank Jaggi remembers it too vividly. Having missed the semifinal, he came back into the XI and was carded at No. 4. The then 23-year-old walked in at 55/2 and played a marathon innings of 100 not out in 251 balls, taking the team to 232. The next best scorer in the team was keeper Shiv Gautam (34) with whom Jaggi added 57 runs for the seventh wicket.
"It was a tricky wicket," recalls Jaggi, now coach of the Jharkhand U23 team. "It was raining on and off but that was a good day. We had to play against a top-notch bowling attack. They had Praveen Kumar, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Murali Kartik, Ishwar Pandey and Jalaj Saxena. It was a personal milestone. But more than that, it was crucial for the team," Jaggi adds.
With 232 on board, East Zone knew they needed to be on mark with the ball. And they had left-arm spinner Iresh Saxena. With not much time left, the only way to win was to secure the first-innings lead. The Bengal spinner and Basant Mohanty stepped up early on, reducing East to 97/4 on the morning of the final day. Tanmay Srivastava, who had been holding fort at one end, found a capable and willing partner in Mahesh Rawat. Together, they showed resistance and slowly kept the scoreboard moving. Tanmay was the lead batter, but Rawat did his part as well.
With just a session left, both teams winning the contest seemed possible. For the East, they needed some magic to happen. Anustup Majumdar, who could not contribute with the bat, wanted to make an impact. The top-order batter went up to his captain just before tea, asking for a chance to bowl.
"The outfield was slow and the way they were batting, they were chasing it easily. I think it was just one over to go for tea and I went upto Nattu (Natraj) and asked for the ball, saying 'let me bowl the last over'. He had never seen me bowl before. He asked me if I could and Ashok Dinda, who had seen me bowl in Bengal, backed me up," Majumdar recalls.
As fate would have it, his leg-break fetched the wicket of Rawat off his third delivery. That was just the beginning of the slide. "The ball was turning a bit and luckily I got a wicket. After tea, Iresh removed Jalaj and I trapped Bhuvi on the pads with a googly. Then PK got out and the last wicket was Murali," the former Bengal batter explains what was a whirlwind hour as Central Zone went from 147/4 to 189 all out in the space of 14.2 overs on the final day.
Majumdar, who bowled 7.5 overs, ran through the tail to finish with 4/29 while Iresh took 5/58, including the wicket of Tanmay for 94, as East secured the title with the 43-run lead. "That's a very memorable final for me. I had performed well as a batter before but to bowl a match-winning spell as a spinner in the Duleep Trophy final, it is a very different kind of memory for me," explains Majumdar.
For Jaggi, the player of the match, it gave confidence and a sense of belonging. "As a Jharkhand player, it was a big self-motivation match for me. The century on that wicket against those bowlers was very important. It gave me the confidence that I can play at a higher level," Jaggi says.
On Sunday, another Jharkhand player, Kishan, will lead East Zone in the hope of ending the title drought. When asked about the more-than-a-decade long wait, Kishan kept it simple on the eve of the final. "I was not part of the team each and every year. I am part of the East Zone team this year. We are in the finals. I am very happy to be playing the finals here. We did a lot of hard work. We played like a unit. We cared for each other. I think those were the key points which we were looking for. If we are playing as a unit, I think that we will get the best out of us," Kishan said on Saturday.
Both Jaggi and Majumdar have been pleased with the way the East Zone has reached the final and hope that they can do it all over again in what will be Mohammed Shami's 100th first-class match. Over the next five days, Kishan would be hoping that someone could step up and deliver like Jaggi and Majumdar did at the same venue 14 years ago.