Veteran cricket commentator Sanjay Manjrekar thinks that Mumbai’s sheer dominance in the Ranji Trophy is fading away due to the rise of other domestic sides. In the ongoing Ranji season, Mumbai has to wait till the result of last round of league matches for a confirm quarter final birth. They have to beat Tripura in their last encounter to ensure a place in the knock-out stage.
“May be one reason is that the other teams are getting stronger. Earlier Mumbai and a couple of other metros who were dominant, now the small town boys are playing with the same kind of ‘jigar’ (enthusiasm). There are more players from around India who are putting up a stiff competition,” said Manjrekar.
Former Mumbai cricketer said this during a book, ‘Spell-binding spells’, launch event, written by Anindya Dutta. Former Mumbai opener Lalchand Rajput was also present during this event.
Manjrekar further thinks that there was a time, when International cricketers were leading Mumbai in the domestic competition, which is missing now.
“And the other reason, if we look at all the good Mumbai teams, there was always an international player captaining them, that’s where somehow they were able to rub on the right kind of culture,” he added. “I played under Sandeep Patil and he made sure that the message was passed on from the highest level to those players. That link, I think, is missing.”
Meanwhile, Lalchand Rajput also gave his views on the same topic and said “That is one of the reasons, yes, other players (apart from those in Mumbai) have also started playing well. The second part is the IPL. A lot of players become more mature by rubbing shoulders with national stars. So they become more confident.”
“I will give you an example, if Gujarat was playing against Mumbai, they would get out before the match started, they would say ‘do din me khatam hoga ya ek din mei’ (will it get over in two days or one day),” he added. “But now the players are saying ‘Bombay ko mar sakte hai’ (we can beat Bombay), the mindset is changing. It all depends on the mindset and other players have started believing that we can beat the best team.”
