Mumbai: A delayed declaration from Jharkhand allowed a shaky Mumbai side to escape with a draw at the Wankhede Stadium, though the visitors picked up three crucial points for their first-innings lead. With the hosts effectively six down given seamer Akbar Khan’s fractured hand, Jharkhand agreed to a stalemate halfway into the final hour, after having batted for an hour and 45 minutes in the morning.
Jharkhand were 262 ahead going into the final day and within an hour, Ishank Jaggi and Shahbaz Nadeem had stretched the lead beyond 325. In their first ever Ranji match against Mumbai, bottom-placed Jharkhand had an excellent chance of pushing for a rare outright win against the defending champions – Only eight times have Mumbai lost a Ranji game at home in 80 years.
But Indian cricket’s love for individual landmarks, and the defensiveness of its domestic teams meant Jharkhand batted till Jaggi reached his century, which took another 45 minutes. Incredibly, they did not declare even after Jaggi was done with his prolonged celebration. Varun Aaron holed out in the deep and Shankar Rao trudged in. Finally, a couple of overs later, Jharkhand decided they were in a safe enough position, and closed the innings on 278 for 7 after consuming 24 overs on the day to set Mumbai an improbable 365 in 64 overs.
The ridiculousness of the “target” came through when Mumbai did not even manage to get one-third of the way, scraping to 115 for 5 in 57 overs. Nadeem said after the match he hadn’t expected Mumbai to bat so defensively. “You can say we delayed [the declaration] but you can’t be 100 percent sure,” Nadeem said. “We should have tried a little more. I did not think they were going to bat like that. [Allowing Jaggi to get to his hundred] was also a factor.”
With three points from five games going into this match, Jharkhand’s chances of making the knockouts were almost over. Nadeem reasoned that though they had targeted victory while declaring, they also wanted to make sure they pocketed at least three points for the first-innings lead to try and avert a possible relegation scenario. “We wanted an outright win. That is why we declared. Otherwise we would have gone ahead and batted all the overs. We are out of the tournament but we also have to stay in the group.”
Aaron, tweeting after the game, hinted at Jharkhand getting the moral victory.
Jharkhand 351 (Tiwary 238, Javed 4-79) and 278 for 7 dec (Jaggi 103*) drew with Mumbai 265 (Tare 67, Aaron 4-42) and 115 for 5 (Tare 36, Nadeem 2-23)
