Mumbai, Bengal start as favourites as semi-final round beckons

When you have just three round-robin games to decide the knockout fixtures of the biggest domestic first-class tournament in the world, the outcome is bound to be taken with a pinch of salt. This is not even ideal for a four-team limited-overs tournament, let alone Ranji Trophy, which despite being ignored by the general cricket-watching public, continues to be the biggest feeder system for Indian cricket. 

But such is the world we live in. The uncertainties of life posed by the deadly pandemic have been throwing spanner in the works for the last two years and the Ranji Trophy 2021-22 became a big casualty. Hence, the shortened format, even though not ideal, helped restore some sort of sanity to the process. 

Thus when Bengal take on Madhya Pradesh or Mumbai lock horns with Uttar Pradesh in Bengaluru from June 14, it would not only be about wrapping up a job but more about establishing the fact that the tournament needs to be taken more seriously by the big people in the board. It can’t just be about tweeting that “we care” but more about living by it, giving the players the required base to carry on despite adversity. 

As Manoj Tiwary would show. The sports minister of the Bengal Government scored a classy 73 against Jharkhand to underline the fact that the hunger for the sport burns right in the vein of players not giving up and can’t be contained by any extraneous factors. From that perspective alone, we can hope for the semifinals between Mumbai and Uttar Pradesh alongside the encounter between Bengal and Madhya Pradesh will run bright concurrently to provide the stakeholders a reality check to prioritize the red-ball format at the domestic level with a little more vigour and honesty.

Madhya Pradesh out to spoil Bengal’s party

In the last Ranji season in 2019-20, Bengal made it to the final thanks to the all-round might of the side. It was a success for Sourav Ganguly’s long-laid Vision 2020 - an ambitious project that saw lots of money being pumped into the system. They unearthed talents from nook and cranny of the state, mushroomed them Ashok Malhotra, Goutam Shome and Joydeep Mukherjee alongside the likes of Waqar Younis, VVS Laxman and Muttiah Muralitharan. 

Two years since their final apperance, a lot has changed and yet a lot has remained the same as well. The success of that vision can be judged by the fact that the side have made consistency look like routine by reaching the semi-finals stage without having to break a sweat. The Abhimanyu Easwaran-led side won three games in the league stage before stamping past Jharkhand with a barrage of runs. 

Throughout the tournament, Bengal have maintained their fluidity in the best possible manner. That has become possible because of the cohesion among the pacers and the sustained run-piling from their top-order - something that had been a long time in making. The ability to replicate the same time and again has become a source of success for the side that had been devoid of any big-ticket trophy for many years now. 

But they would know that Madhya Pradesh are not just another side, making up the numbers. Madhya Pradesh’s profile has moved fast from the days of Jayprakash Yadav and Amay Khurasiya being journeymen in Indian cricket, and under the tutelage of Chandrakant Pandit, they have become a force to be reckoned with. 

Yash Dubey (459 runs at an average of 114.75), Rajat Patidar (419 runs at an average of 84.00), and Shubham Sharma (419 runs at an average of 104.75) were the major architects of the success in the batting department and the focus will squarely be on them to tackle Bengal pacers. Kumar Kartikeya (19 wickets at 16.47) and Gaurav Yadav (13 wickets at 16.00) made sure the batting department had two able allies to support their act. If they get together to produce another inspiring performace, as they did against Punjab in the quarters, the story can take a decisive turn. 

Can UP sustain Mumbai pressure?

When Mumbai selectors decided to leave out their premier pacer Tushar Deshpande for the league stage of the Ranji Trophy 2021-22, it was a blow that they hardly see it coming. Deshpande was fit and raring to go but the sudden decision to keep him out of the tournament was surprise to many Mumbai cricket followers. But by correcting that mistake for the quarter finals, not only have Salil Ankola and Amol Muzumdar found their strike gun back, but also bolstered the unit by a huge margin.

While the bowling will have a lot riding on them, Mumbai have a firepower batting line-up to check-mate any side on their day. If the presence of imposing Sarfraz Khan and Yashasvi Jaiswal was not enough, Suved Parkar scored a debut century to add zing to the side’s business. For Karan Sharma’s Uttar Pradesh, containing the 41-time champions will be a key navigating point. 

Uttar Pradesh had a certain Saurabh Kumar to thank for his impeccable control brought down ginats Karnataka for the first time in their history. On a wicket that had a challenge for the batters to go for their strokes, Kumar had them on the mat in the second innings and that’s something that would play in Mumbai’s minds. The favourites tag would mean nothing if Mumbai fail to counter that threat, just like Karnataka, whose home hegemony went for a toss on the penultimate day.