Mumbai, on Thursday, March 14, won the Ranji Trophy 2024 after beating Vidarbha by 169 runs at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai. It also happened to be their 42nd title for Mumbai, which showed why they are deemed as a brute force in Indian domestic cricket.
Mumbai also ended their 8-year-long wait to win the championship after they last got their hands on the title back in the 2015-16 edition. Vidarbha won both their Ranji finals earlier, but this time around, they bowed down in front of Ajinkya Rahane’s men. Rahane became the 26th Mumbai captain to win the Ranji Trophy.
After being asked to chase down a mammoth target of 538, Vidarbha went into Stumps on Day 4 with their score at 248 for 5 in 92 overs. Akshay Wadkar, batting on 56, and Harsh Dubey had a huge task on their hands on the last and final day.
They did not give their wickets away in the first session on Day 5 and also brought down the target below 200. Wadkar, in the meantime, got to his hundred off 195 balls to put Mumbai under a bit of pressure.
Just when Dubey and Wadkar seemed like taking the game away from Mumbai, Rahane and Co. staged a comeback. Tanush Kotian trapped Wadkar in front after which Tushar Deshpande removed Dubey, who scored 65 runs off 128 balls.
The Vidarbha lower order batters did not show much resistance. Dhawal Kulkarni, playing his last competitive match, dismissed Umesh Yadav to pull the curtains down on the match.
Kotian was arguably the pick of the bowlers for Mumbai in the second innings after he finished with impressive figures of 39-5-95-4. Deshpande and the young Musheer Khan also accounted for 2 scalps apiece.
From once being at 353 for 5 in 129.1 overs, Vidarbha lost wickets in a heap and were bowled out for 368.