Mumbai: Skipper Siddhesh Lad scored his fifth First Class century of the season to guide Mumbai to a comfortable situation in the Elite Ranji Trophy Group D encounter against Delhi at MCA’s BKC ground here on Friday.
It was the fourth consecutive century in the longest format from Lad’s bat, who was elevated to captaincy in the last game against Hyderabad after Shardul Thakur missed out due to injury. The 33-year-old Lad hit an unbeaten 102 in 178 balls, studded with 12 boundaries.
Mumbai ended the day strongly at 266/5 in 84 overs when the second day was called off ten minutes earlier due to bad light. The hosts have a lead of 45 runs after Delhi made 221 in their first innings on Thursday, thanks to Sanat Sangwan’s century. Musheer Khan (57) and Suved Parkar (53 not out) struck fifties while Delhi seamers Divij Mehra and Money Grewal shared two wickets apiece. For Mumbai also seamers Mohit Avasthi (5/62) and Tushar Desphande (2/36) were among the wickets on the first day.
Lad was involved in an undefeated 130-run stand with Parkar for the sixth wicket to drive Mumbai ahead. He had earlier shared a 63-run partnership with Musheer to take Mumbai out of the doldrums after Mumbai were reduced to 44/3 in the morning session. Musheer was out to a dubious caught behind decision, and Sarfaraz Khan’s cameo of 24 runs in 27 balls had an anticlimax to leave the hosts tottering at 5/136.
However, on a wicket that supported the seamers and runs were hard to score, crisis man Lad played the role of an anchor, and Parkar, making a comeback to the side, latched on to the opportunity to play a fluent knock. He reached his century at the fag end of the day, thanks to overthrows, sending jubilations around the ground.
Lad equals record for Mumbai
Lad equalled Rusi Modi and Sachin Tendulkar in hitting at least five tons in a season for Mumbai. He earlier scored hundreds against Hyderabad (104), Puducherry (170), and Himachal Pradesh (127). He had also scored a hundred against Jammu and Kashmir in the first Ranji Trophy match of the season. He has already scored over 700 runs in his seventh match and has an astonishing average of over 100.
Lad who contemplated quitting cricket after a season with Goa in 2022-23, has been enjoying a purple patch after comeback to the Mumbai team, last season. But it was his father, Dinesh Lad, who had coached International players like Rohit Sharma and Harmeet Singh, who pushed his son to continue playing cricket
“After a season with Goa, I didn’t know if I should continue playing cricket or not. It was (my) dad’s passion, and he said, you still have a lot of cricket left in you. he pushed me to have another go,” he said.
The middle-order batter, who showed a lot of promise as a youngster with the Mumbai Ranji team and the Mumbai Indians in IPL briefly, couldn’t make it to the Indian team. He knows he has less chance, but he continues to dream.
“It has always been my ultimate goal to play for the country. But right now, I am just trying to do my job. My first goal is to win the Ranji Trophy over Mumbai, since I have come back from some other state, and I am thankful to Ajinkya Naik and MCA for showing faith in me,” Lad said after the match.
He acknowledged that his conversion rate for converting fifties into hundreds wasn’t great earlier, but now he has learnt to better that rate. “I have a lot of fifties, and my conversion rate earlier wasn’t that good. Now I have a better conversion rate. Earlier, I also got opportunities mostly down the order, and No 6 or No 7, and had to bat with the tail. Then we had players like Ajinkya Rahane and Suryakumar Yadav up the order. Now I bat mostly up the order, which has worked for me,” he said.
Brief scores:
In Mumbai: Delhi 221 trail Mumbai 266/5 in 84 overs (Musheer Khan 57, Siddhesh Lad 102 not out, Suved Parkar 53 not out; Divij Mehra 2/38) by 45 runs.
In Hyderabad: Chhattisgarh 283 trail Hyderabad 415/4 in 105 overs (Aman Rao 52, Abhirath Reddy 121, Himateja Kodimela 125 not out, Pragnay Reddy 52 not out; Ayush Pandey 1/26) by 132 runs.
In Puducherry: Rajasthan 168 & 77/2 in 23.3 overs (Ramnivas Golada 47; Karan Kannan 2/18) trail lead Puducherry 349 in 93.2 overs (Neyan Kangayan 120, Aman Khan 118; Mohit Chandra 3/78) by 104 runs.
In Nadaun, Himachal Pradesh, 168 trail Jammu and Kashmir 387/5 in 103 overs (Shubham Pundir 165, Paras Dogra 52, Abdul Samad 61, Kanhaiya Wadhawan 56 not out; Divesh Sharma 2/54) by 219 runs
Construction work continues to disturb the game
The air and noise pollution around MCA’s BKC ground has attracted attention in the ongoing Ranji Trophy match between Mumbai and Delhi. A few Mumbai players were wearing face masks during fielding on Thursday. It continued to disturb players on Friday as the continuous hammering during building construction work outside made hearing things difficult in the middle.
It is learnt that the ground representatives had sought Police intervention to stop work during match time or at least keep proper netting to prevent dust and cement particles from coming on the ground with the air and stop noise.
Mumbai skipper Siddhesh Lad said, we informed the team manager after the first day about the inconvenience caused due to construction work, and they passed the message to the concerned authorities. He also pointed out that it was difficult to hear things in the middle at times and that could have been the reason for Musheer Khan’s doubtful decision. “Umpire’s task is difficult, and with no DRS there we don’t have options. It is part of the game. There has been a lot of noise at times due to construction work around, so it is difficult to hear the nick,” he said.