CHENNAI: Soon after Vidarbha lost the Ranji Trophy final to domestic heavyweights Mumbai on March 14 last year, all stakeholders including coaches and management felt the need to chalk out strategies for the upcoming season. A lot was discussed during a meeting after that loss including the areas where the team needed to work on, roping in youngsters and giving them enough match practice ahead of the 2024-25 season.
In their bid to begin early, the Vidarbha Cricket Association zeroed down on probables for both red and white ball competitions in June and July last year. Monsoon remained an issue for this planned early start as the region receives heavy rain during that season. So it was decided to travel to places where rain could not play spoilsport and hence began the tour of Solapur in Maharashtra in July followed by a trip to Puducherry the next month and participation in the KSCA tournament. Amid all this, the players also had sessions with a mental trainer and sports psychologist to have that mental toughness during the close contests.
All those efforts put in around the year eventually bore fruit as Vidarbha overcame Kerala by virtue of a 37-run first-innings lead in Nagpur to lift the Ranji Trophy on Sunday.
"It all started soon after we lost the Ranji final last year," Usman Ghani, Vidarbha head coach told this daily. "The VCA provided all resources to make sure the team has an edge over their rivals when the season begins," Ghani added. And they really had the edge as they demolished the field winning six out of seven league matches, beating their opponents comprehensively in the quarterfinal (Tamil Nadu) and semifinal (Mumbai) before the ultimate glory in the final.
"The message was clear: dominate the proceedings. The players were confident as irrespective of their experience, they all had prepared well thanks to days' matches we played in Solapur, Puducherry and KSCA tournament. We should have won the Vijay Hazare tournament but lost the final to Karnataka," opined the coach.
Vidarbha had won the Ranji title in 2017-18 and 2018-19 and were a force to reckon with in domestic cricket even if they didn't win the premier tournament. It was in the same period the VCA decided to hire services of mental trainers and sports psychologists. "Amber Arondekar, a corporate trainer and Dr Swaroop Savanur, a renowned sports psychologist from Pune, worked with all Vidarbha teams from time to time. The former was with the senior men's team till last year while Dr Savanur has been working with the women's team and junior boys. It definitely helped the players as the sessions made them mentally tough. They learnt how to be positive in difficult situations and also inculcated self-belief in them. They also learnt how to be ruthless and dominating irrespective of their opponents. Overall we played fearless cricket during the whole season."
Yash Rathod finished as the leading run-scorer of the tournament with 960 runs from 18 innings at an average of 53.33. Similarly, the young left-arm spinner Harsh Dubey, who created history by taking the most wickets in a Ranji season (69), led the bowling chart. He also scored 476 runs making him the Player of the Tournament.
VCA announces cash awards
Meanwhile, the VCA announced a cash reward of Rs. 3 crore for the team. The association also announced separate cash incentives for the support staff and some of its players after they won the title for the third time since 2017-18 season. The VCA also felicitated Akshay Wakhare on his retirement. Wakhare retired after claiming 344 wickets in 105 First-Class matches and his last appearance was in the quarterfinal against Tamil Nadu.
"The Vidarbha Cricket Association announced a cash award of `3 crore to the victorious Vidarbha team (players only)," the VCA said in a release. The 22-year-old spinner Dubey was awarded Rs. 25 lakh while India and Vidarbha batter Karun Nair (863 runs in nine matches at 53.93, 4 centuries, 2 half centuries) and Rathod were awarded Rs.10 lakh each.
Besides, the VCA announced Rs.15 lakhs for head coach Usman Ghani; Rs. 5 lakh each to assistant coach (Atul Ranade), physiotherapist (Dr Nitin Khurana), S&C coach (Yuvraj Singh Dasondhi) and video analyst (Amit Manikrao); Rs. 2 lakh each to manager (Jitendra Darbha), side-arm specialist (Yash Thorat) and masseur ((Rajsingh Chandel).
Brief scores: Vidarbha 379 & 375/9 in 143.5 ovs (Danish Malewar 73, Karun Nair 135, Darshan Nalkhande 51 n.o; Aditya Sarwate 4/96) drew with Kerala 342. Vidarbha won by virtue of the first innings lead.