Akshay Wadkar

The wicketkeeper-batter averages close to 53 in first-class cricket but hasn't even been considered for India A yet

Ranji Trophy, 2022/23

Vidarbha

India A

Vidarbha’s BJ Watling, Akshay ‘clutch’ Wadkar continues to go unrewarded

<a href="https://www.cricket.com/players/2295/chandrakant-pandit/career-stats" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Chandrakant Pandit</a>&rsquo;s astute and unmatched coachmanship, <a href="https://www.cricket.com/players/4500/faiz-fazal/career-stats" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Faiz Fazal</a>&rsquo;s inspirational leadership, <a href="https://www.cricket.com/players/5044/ganesh-satish/career-stats" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Ganesh Satish</a> and <a href="https://www.cricket.com/players/1590/wasim-jaffer/career-stats" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Wasim Jaffer</a>&rsquo;s experience, <a href="https://www.cricket.com/players/65200/sanjay-raghunath/career-stats" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Sanjay Raghunath</a> and <a href="https://www.cricket.com/players/63707/akshay-wadkar/career-stats" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Akshay Wadkar</a>&#39;s clutch knocks, <a href="https://www.cricket.com/players/65886/rajneesh-gurbani/career-stats" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Rajneesh Gurbani</a>&#39;s swing bowling, and <a href="https://www.cricket.com/players/64739/aditya-sarwate/career-stats" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Aditya Sarwate</a> and <a href="https://www.cricket.com/players/5344/akshay-wakhare/career-stats" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Akshay Wakhare</a>&rsquo;s dominance in the spin department - it was all these factors that helped <a href="https://www.cricket.com/teams/1221/vidarbha/form" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Vidarbha</a> win their maiden Ranji Trophy title on this very day in 2018.&nbsp;They had a near-perfect Ranji Trophy 2017-18 and defeated Delhi by nine wickets in the final to win the prestigious domestic trophy for the first time in their 61st attempt.BACKGROUNDVidarbha made their Ranji Trophy debut in the 1957-58 season and it took them 61 years to get their hands on the trophy. Forget winning the trophy, Vidarbha didn&rsquo;t even qualify for the semi-finals in their past 60 attempts.&nbsp;They were terrible during the 2013-14 season, winning just one of their eight encounters. They did make it through to the quarter-finals of the next two editions but failed to do anything substantial in the 2016-17 season. That&rsquo;s when Vidarbha said enough is enough and hired Chandrakant Pandit as their head coach prior to the 2017-18 season, and the Man with the Midas Touch weaved his magic once again.&nbsp;THE TOURNAMENTIn a long red-ball competition like Ranji Trophy, it&rsquo;s always crucial to start the season with an outright win and Vidarbha got that when they hammered Punjab by an innings and 117 runs. Former Karnataka batter Ganesh Satish, who moved to Vidarbha in the 2014-15 season, slammed 164, while Sanjay Ramaswamy too got 161. With runs on the board, Vidarbha&rsquo;s bowling unit had little trouble dealing with Punjab&rsquo;s batters.&nbsp;Vidarbha then went on to get outright wins against Services, Bengal and Goa, while their games against Chhattisgarh and Himachal Pradesh ended in a draw. They conceded a first-innings lead against Chhattisgarh in their second match of the season but then won those three encounters in a row. In their last group game, Vidarbha did get the first-innings lead against Himachal and ended as Group D table-toppers.Then came the knockouts and that&rsquo;s when Rajneesh Gurbani forced everyone to sit up and take notice. The right-arm pacer, who relies heavily on swing bowling, claimed 27 wickets in three games (quarter-final, semi-final and final) at an average of 14.11 and a strike rate of 27.2, studded with four five-wicket hauls. He was the Player of the Match in each of those three encounters. The other bowlers hardly had to do anything.<img src="https://images-cricketcom.imgix.net/1672535147094-articleimg" style="width: 700px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">In the quarter-final against Kerala, Gurbani took seven wickets in the match. Vidarbha could only get 246 in the first innings but Gurbani dismantled Kerala to give his team a 70-run lead. Skipper Faiz Fazal and Apoorv Wankhade then crafted centuries in the second essay and Vidarbha comfortably won the match by 412 runs. However, their biggest test came against heavyweights Karnataka in the semi-final.The venue was Eden Gardens and Vidarbha were dismissed for just 185 in the first innings. Karun Nair then smashed 153 and gave Karnataka a sizeable lead of 116 runs. It looked like Vidarbha&rsquo;s dream run would finally come to an end but Fazal and his men were having none of that. The likes of Wasim Jaffer, Satish, Wankhade, <a href="https://www.cricket.com/players/63707/akshay-wadkar/career-stats" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Akshay Wadkar</a> and Aditya Sarwate all got 30-plus runs each and gave Karnataka a tricky target of 198. Gurbani, who had claimed five wickets in the first innings, took seven more in the second and ripped apart Karnataka&#39;s famous batting line-up. They ended up winning the game by just five runs.Karnataka were defeated but Gurbani and Vidarbha weren&rsquo;t done yet. The right-armer got a hat-trick in the final against Delhi before Vidarbha amassed 547 runs in their first innings, with wicketkeeper-batter Wadkar scoring 133. Fazal (67), Jaffer (78), Sarwate (79) and Siddesh Neral (74) all got half-centuries as Vidarbha batted Delhi out of the contest. Delhi somehow got a lead of 28 in the second essay and Vidarbha hunted it down with nine wickets to spare. History was made and Vidarbha were rightfully crowned as champions for the first time in their history. &nbsp;&quot;The way we played the first game against Punjab - they are a great side and we got seven points from that game. That set the tone and we started believing that definitely we can win this trophy. As a cricketer, you always think winning the Ranji Trophy will be the biggest thing. Winning the Ranji Trophy has been the biggest achievement in my career,&quot; Fazal said after the final.Fazal (912 runs @ 70.15) led Vidarbha from the front and ended the tournament as the second-highest run-scorer. Meanwhile, Sanjay (775 @ 64.58), Satish (638 @ 58), Jaffer (595 @ 54.09), Sarwate (330 @ 47.14) and Wadkar (308 @ 61.60) too scored lots of runs. In the bowling department, Gurbani took 39 wickets at an average of 17.12, while Wakhare (34 wickets @ 21.76) and Sarwate (29 wickets @ 16.65) were also impressive throughout the tournament.&nbsp;WHAT FOLLOWEDA couple of months later, Vidarbha also went on to win the Irani Trophy to cap off their successful season. Many people called this season a fluke but Vidarbha responded by defending both those titles the very next year. However, Vidarbha haven&rsquo;t qualified for the knockouts since then, but have won two of their first three games in the ongoing season and are looking in good form.Powered by <a href="https://www.froala.com/wysiwyg-editor?pb=1" title="Froala Editor">Froala Editor</a>

It took them 61 years to get their hands on the prestigious domestic trophy

Faiz Fazal

Ganesh Satish

Wasim Jaffer

Chandrakant Pandit

Sanjay Raghunath

Rajneesh Gurbani

Akshay Wakhare

Aditya Sarwate

Ranji Trophy, 2017/18

When Vidarbha won their maiden Ranji Trophy title

Yashasvi Jaiswal(Innings 6 | Runs 498 | Average 83 | 50s/100s 1/3)The left-handed opener has lost two finals (IPL 2022 and Ranji Trophy 2021-22) in the last two months but his form with the bat has been phenomenal. The 20-year-old was dropped for the league phase of the Ranji Trophy, with Mumbai preferring Aakarshit Gomel over him. The latter struggled big time and Mumbai decided to bring in Jaiswal for the knockouts. The young man responded in a tremendous fashion, smashing three back-to-back centuries. He scored 103 in the second innings of the quarterfinal against Uttarakhand and followed it up with twin centuries in the semifinal against Uttar Pradesh. Jaiswal got 78 in the first innings of the final and missed out on an opportunity of slamming four consecutive hundreds, but did more than enough to prove his worth in red-ball cricket.Yash Dhull(Innings 6 | Runs 479 | Average 119.75 | 50s/100s 0/3)Delhi failed to qualify for the knockouts but you could take nothing away from what Dhull achieved in his maiden first-class season. He might be just 19 but he is as real and sorted as they come, both on and off the field. After leading India to their fifth Under-19 World Cup title earlier this year, the stylish right-hander made his debut for the state team and announced his arrival in some style. Playing against Tamil Nadu, Dhull smacked a century in each innings, despite being asked to bat in an unfamiliar position. In the process, he became only the third batter to score a ton in each innings on his Ranji Trophy debut. He also became the third-youngest Indian to score twin centuries in a Ranji Trophy game. He couldn&#39;t do much against Jharkhand but ended the season with a stunning double century in the second innings against Chhattisgarh after Delhi were asked to follow-on. &nbsp; &nbsp;Shubham Sharma(Innings 9 | Runs 608 | Average 76 | 50s/100s 1/4)The right-hander has been around since 2013 but this was his breakout year. Shubham was Madhya Pradesh&rsquo;s second-highest run-scorer and only Chetan Bist (Nagaland - Plate Group) scored more centuries than him this season. He started the season with scores of 92 and 103* against Gujarat and never looked back thereafter. Batting at No. 3, the 28-year-old constantly delivered for his team. His 104 against Punjab in the quarter-final helped his team emerge victorious and then came that century in the grand finale. Shubham scored 116 in the first inning and put on a partnership of 222 with Yash Dubey to bat Mumbai out of the game.&nbsp;<img src="https://images-cricketcom.imgix.net/1656324285035-articleimg" style="width: 700px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">Rajat Patidar (c)(Innings 9 | Runs 658 | Average 82.25 | 50s/100s 5/2)The 29-year-old has been a man on a mission for the last few months. From becoming the first uncapped player to hammer an IPL century in a playoff game to demoralising Mumbai in the final, Patidar is having the time of his life at the moment. No other batter managed more 50-plus scores than Patidar in the Ranji Trophy. The only time he was dismissed for less than fifty was in the first innings of the semifinal against Bengal. However, he saved his best for the last, scoring 122 in the first innings of the finale. Every time he walked out to bat, Patidar looked calm and never allowed the bowlers to dictate terms. He ended the season as the second-highest run-getter, and will also be the captain of our side.&nbsp;Sarfaraz Khan(Innings 9 | Runs 982 | Average 122.75 | 50s/100s 2/4)There he is, the player of the tournament! Just look at those numbers and you would know how dominating Sarfaraz has been in red-ball cricket. Not just this year, the right-hander even amassed more than 900 runs in the 2019-20 edition and became only the third batter after Ajay Sharma and Wasim Jaffer to score 900-plus runs twice in a Ranji season. Coming into the quarterfinal, in the league stage before IPL 2022, he had scores of 275, 63, 48 and 165. In the quarterfinal against Uttarakhand, Sarfaraz hit 153* before crafting another century (134) in the final. Interestingly, this was the first time he failed to convert his century into a 150-plus score in first-class cricket. Such has been his dominance that Sarfaraz ended 324 runs ahead of the second-highest run-scorer and is likely to be part of the Indian squad for the two-match Test series against Bangladesh in November.Akshay Wadkar (wk)(Innings 4 | Runs 272 | Average 136 | 50s/100s 0/2)Vidarbha&rsquo;s very own crisis man! We don&rsquo;t talk enough about Wadkar but the 27-year-old has been one of the best wicketkeeper-batters in the domestic circuit. In 34 first-class encounters, the right-hander averages 57.36 and is known for scoring tough runs. And, this year was no different. Vidarbha didn&rsquo;t make it through to the knockouts but Wadkar managed to craft two centuries in four innings. He scored 102* against Uttar Pradesh and then managed 146* in the second match against Maharashtra, also putting up a partnership of 288 with Ganesh Satish. If there&rsquo;s an early collapse, you could always bet on Wadkar to come good. &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;Shahbaz Ahmed(Runs 482 | Average 60.25 | 50s/100s 3/1 | Wickets 20 | Average 22.10)<img src="https://images-cricketcom.imgix.net/1656324230483-articleimg" style="width: 700px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">The spin-bowling allrounder was Bengal&rsquo;s leading run-getter and joint-highest wicket-taker in this edition, and that tells you something. In fact, Shahbaz has been remarkable for Bengal in the last two seasons. In 2019-20, the left-armer scored 509 runs at an average of 36.35 and scalped 35 wickets at 16.80. This year, he was once again brilliant both with the bat and ball. Batting in the lower middle-order, Shahbaz had to script many rescue acts and he did that with great perfection almost every single time. In nine out of his 10 innings, Shahbaz managed to cross the 20-run mark. He also claimed at least one wicket in all but one innings. Bengal lost to Madhya Pradesh in the semifinal but Shahbaz made quite an impact, slamming his maiden first-class century and also taking eight wickets. He did more than what you would expect from an all-rounder. &nbsp;Shams Mulani(Runs 321 | Average 40.12 | 50s/100s 5/0 | Wickets 45 | Average 16.75)The left-arm spinner from Mumbai ended the season as the leading wicket-taker, but that wasn&rsquo;t it. The 25-year-old also managed five half-centuries and scored some vital runs down the order for his team. Mulani picked up at least two wickets in every innings apart from one in the semifinal against Uttar Pradesh, but he did score a fifty in each innings. Mulani scalped 22 wickets in the first two encounters of the season and eventually ended with six five-wicket hauls. Despite taking five wickets in the first innings of the final, he wasn&rsquo;t at his best and conceded 173 runs in 63.2 overs. No other Mumbai bowler picked up more than 18 wickets and that tells you how crucial a role Mulani played in his team&rsquo;s run to the final.Mukesh Kumar(Innings 9 | Wickets 20 | Average 24.75 | Strike rate 57.5)The right-arm seamer from Bengal is your workhorse. Only Kumar Kartikeya (295.3), Mulani (259.2) and Shahbaz Nadeem (236) bowled more overs than Mukesh (191.5) and all of them are spinners. In fact, the next fast bowler on the list is Nagaland&rsquo;s Rongsen Jonathan who bowled 158.3 overs in eight innings. He is one of those bowlers who could bowl long spells and allow others to attack from the other end. It&rsquo;s not just the number of overs Mukesh bowled, the 28-year-old got crucial wickets for Bengal throughout the competition.&nbsp;Gaurav Yadav(Innings 10 | Wickets 23 | Average 18.91 | Strike rate 33.1)Having made his debut in 2012, the 30-year-old finally had an impactful season, finishing as the highest wicket-taker amongst all the fast bowlers. In the absence of Avesh Khan, Gaurav led MP&rsquo;s pace attack and played a massive role in their maiden Ranji Trophy title. Amongst bowlers who bowled at least 100 overs in the tournament, only Mulani and Baltej Singh had a better average than Gaurav. He commenced the season with a four-wicket haul against Gujarat and ended it by taking six wickets in the final, including the likes of Sarfaraz, Prithvi Shaw and Armaan Jaffer. Gaurav has struggled with injuries in the past but the right-arm seamer would be delighted with what he and his team achieved this season. &nbsp;Prasidh Krishna(Innings 4 | Wickets 15 | Average 11.60 | Strike rate 25.1)Karnataka looked a different unit with Prasidh in the team. The tall paceman played only two matches but managed to take 15 wickets. The right-armer dismantled Jammu and Kashmir, taking 10 wickets in the entire game. Then in the game against Puducherry, Prasidh took five more wickets. He was almost unplayable in some of his spells and Karnataka missed his presence in the knockouts. They were involved in a low-scoring affair against Uttar Pradesh in the quarterfinal and if he was available, Karan Sharma and Co. would have found it difficult to chase down 213 in the final innings. In this team, Prasidh could be used in short, strong spells and could wreak havoc with his pace and bounce.Powered by <a href="https://www.froala.com/wysiwyg-editor?pb=1" title="Froala Editor">Froala Editor</a>

akshay wadkar

Vidarbha’s BJ Watling, Akshay ‘clutch’ Wadkar continues to go unrewarded

When Vidarbha won their maiden Ranji Trophy title

Ranji Trophy 2021-22: Team of the Tournament