CHENNAI: Thankfully, there was one cricketing story on Friday in which underdogs ended up defying the odds.
Even as Mayank Agarwal & Co were pounding Bangladesh in Indore, 600-odd kilometres away, 11 men from Meghalaya were engineering the biggest heist in the history of Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 Trophy — a six-wicket win over Mumbai at Wankhede Stadium. A player from Hyderabad and another from Chennai were the heroes, but we’ll come to them later.
Here’s why this win qualifies as the “David slays Goliath” of the season. Meghalaya were officially baptised as a domestic team last year. The last Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy was when they’d actually gone up against domestic regulars — they were Plate entries for Vijay Hazare and Ranji Trophy, and never progressed to the knockouts — and lost all their six clashes.
They assembled in Shillong, but had a six-day pre-season camp in Guwahati because their hometown doesn’t have the infrastructure. No practice matches. A new coach (Gautam Shome). Anybody saying before Friday that they’d beat a side with one current India star (Shreyas Iyer), two former internationals (Shardul Thakur and Dhawal Kulkarni) and one IPL veteran (Suryakumar Yadav) would have been recommended a visit to the psychiatrist.
“It’s a big boost for us,” said DB Ravi Teja, who shifted from Andhra to Meghalaya this season. The all-rounder is one among their three guest players. Sanjay Yadav (moved from Tamil Nadu this year) and Puneet Bisht (from Delhi last season) are the other two.
“As the three professionals of the side, we take it upon ourselves to help the team.”
Ravi isn’t exaggerating, if the 92-run stand (off 75 balls) between him and Sanjay in Meghalaya’s win is anything to go by. These two and Bisht are the only three among Meghalaya’s 13 batsmen with a triple-digit tally in this edition. Wouldn’t be wrong to say that the influence of what was learned in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Delhi is what is serving as a flotsam for the rest of the team to hang on to.
“It was a bit difficult to get settled in with a new team; everything changes, food, weather and all. But Ravi bhai and I bonded well over a lot of things and that has helped us bed in with the rest of the guys. We’re roommates now,” remarked Sanjay. “As the guys who’ve been around in this game for a while, we want to try and pass on everything that we’ve learnt to the other guys and help them get better. That’s our aim.”
Going by Friday, the ball that Ravi, Sanjay and Bisht set rolling before this season seems to have gathered a decent speed.
Brief scores: Mumbai 157/6 in 20 ovs (Bista 44) lost to Meghalaya 161/4 in 19.2 ovs (Ravi Teja 61 n.o, Sanjay 55).