Tamil Nadu’s 2023-24 Ranji Trophy season ended with a crushing innings-and-70-run defeat to Mumbai within the semifinals. Although the meek give up left many disillusioned, TN nonetheless will really feel it had an excellent run within the premier competitors after it lastly broke a five-season drought of not even qualifying for the knockouts.
R. Sai Kishore’s males performed an aggressive model of cricket and bought 5 outright wins from 9 video games, together with three wins by an innings. The crew maximised its energy in dwelling circumstances, with the senior batters piling on the runs whereas the spinners ran by way of batting line-ups because it bowled out its opposition twice in all video games till the semifinal.
N. Jagadeesan had his greatest season within the Ranji Trophy with 816 runs, together with a triple and double-hundred, however meagre returns towards the highest groups is one thing he would wish to appropriate subsequent 12 months. B. Indrajith (767 runs) continued to stay as much as the billing as TN’s disaster man with important knocks when the crew was below stress. Vijay Shankar and Pradosh Ranjan Paul, too, made essential runs, with a century every.
On the bowling entrance, left-arm spinner Sai Kishore (53) turned solely the third TN bowler to scalp greater than 50 wickets and will find yourself as the very best wicket-taker within the competitors. He bought good assist from Ajith Ram (41), and pacer Sandeep Warrier bowled with coronary heart and gave essential breakthroughs even on sluggish surfaces.
Nonetheless, when it got here to taking part in in circumstances that helped the seamers, the TN batters’ technical frailties had been uncovered. The crew performed solely two video games on such pitches—the primary one in Valsad towards Gujarat and the semifinal towards Mumbai—and these had been those by which it suffered outright defeats.
All through the season, Sai Kishore spoke about trusting his instincts as captain, and he walked the discuss, main from the entrance with each bat and ball. However towards Mumbai, his resolution to bat first on a inexperienced prime backfired.
If the defeat was unhealthy sufficient, coach Sulakshan Kulkarni’s post-match feedback pinning the blame on the captain for shedding the match on the toss made it worse, revealing the schism contained in the crew.
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Former TN cricketers like Dinesh Karthik, Hemang Badani, and Ok. Srikkanth known as out the coach for letting the crew down in public. “As a substitute of backing the captain who introduced the crew to the semis after seven years and considering it’s a begin for good issues to occur, the coach has thrown his captain and crew below the bus. Dissatisfied at how he reacted and disregarding the senior gamers who’ve led from the entrance is gloomy to see,” mentioned Karthik.
Regardless of the loss, the crew now has a baseline of efficiency from which it may possibly construct, supplied it may possibly iron out some points, particularly on the batting entrance.