MUMBAI: Mumbai has been reeling under severe October heat. Bowling in temperatures touching 37 degrees is never easy, but playing his 50th First-Class game, Mumbai fast bowler Tushar Deshpande was determined to make it memorable.
On a lively Wankhede Stadium track, the speedster produced an inspired performance, picking up a superb hat-trick and running through the Chandigarh line-up with a five-wicket haul, on Day 2 of the opening Ranji Trophy match.
Powered by Tushar’s fine spell of 7-1-17-5, the hosts bundled out Chandigarh for 78 in 19.1 overs after amassing 429 in their first innings. With a massive lead of 351 runs, Mumbai had no hesitation in enforcing the follow-on.
In the only over possible in the second innings, Deshpande struck on his third ball to finish with a tally of six wickets for the day. It was a day when Deshpande didn’t put a foot wrong, having scored a 47-ball 44 in the morning.
“It’s my 50th First Class match. So it was just in my mind that I wanted to make it special but it wasn’t like a hat-trick and all that, I was going to give my 100 per cent,” Deshpande said at the end of the day’s play. “I would say that it is one of my best performances.”
Left-hand opener Arslan Khan was Deshpande’s first victim, clean bowling him on the last ball of his fourth over. The irrepressible pacer who thrives in bowling long spells, then tore through the line-up with a sensational burst in his sixth over to become the sixth bowler to claim a hat-trick for Mumbai in the Ranji Trophy.
On the third ball, he had the other opener, Arjun Azad, caught off a top-edge at fine leg by Sylvester D’Suza, next ball Shivam Bhambri played on and for the hat-trick ball the pacer produced the perfect delivery on a good length to take the outside edge for a low catch to first slip Yashasvi Jaiswal.
In his next over, he trapped Raj Bawa leg-before wicket to complete his fifer.
Talking about his hat-trick ball, Deshpande said: “It was just that I wanted to bowl my best ball no matter what. I think it was my day, he could have missed it. But he nicked it, Jaiswal also took a brilliant catch. So it was just to bowl my best ball,” said the stocky pacer who recollected picking hat-tricks earlier at the club level, in the T20 Mushtaq Ali Trophy and the KSCA Tournament.
Asked about his plan for the second wicket of the hat-trick, he said: “If you see it was a top-of-off-stump ball. And for a new batter to get such a ball, it’s like a nightmare. And as I said I was just looking to bowl my best balls, and he got out on that.”
Although no speed gun was used in the domestic game, his seven-over opening spell was one of the sharpest he has bowled. “Recently when I was playing for India, I was bowling about 140s in every spell with the red ball. It’s not always the speed with the red ball. It’s about the situation in which you come to bowl. And it’s not like a T20 game where I have to bowl just 4 overs. I have to bowl throughout the day. So whatever the situation is, I look at what I can do the best and accordingly increase or modify my speeds.”
The six-wicket haul helped Deshpande complete 150 wickets in First-Class cricket. Doing consistently well in domestic cricket and the IPL, he has the ambition of playing international cricket regularly.
The pacer started the season well with a four-wicket haul in the Duleep Trophy and a decent show against Australia A with both bat and ball, to be in contention for the A team’s tour of New Zealand. Monday’s performance came against the backdrop of not being picked for the shadow tour ahead of the Test and white ball series. Did it provide an added motivation?
“There is always motivation to play Test Cricket for India. No matter if I am selected for the A-Tour or not. I thought for a day about that. But see I have always said that I want to chase performance not selection. So I came back to Wankhede again, reset, did my process and bowled again.”