Ranji Trophy: Poor 1st-innings show did us in, says Hrishikesh Kanitkar

CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu's dream of winning their their third Ranji Trophy title will remain an elusive one. Their campaign started off with a loss to Mumbai in Lahli, and it concluded the same way - now in Rajkot. For coach Hrishikesh Kanitkar, coming up with a below-par show in the first innings pushed the team behind in the semis. "On this wicket, once you win the toss and bat - you must put up a total in excess of 450.When you play stronger teams such as Mumbai, a total of 305 may not be enough. Having said that, I thought we had a decent season and our players continued to fight and stay in the hunt all through," Kanitkar told TOI.
If scoring 305 wasn't enough, Abhinav did delay in taking the new ball in Mumbai's first innings on the third day, but Kanitkar defended the skipper's decision. "Taking a new ball is no guarantee for getting wickets. At that point of time, Aparajith was in the middle of a good spell and was troubling the Mumbai batsmen and that could have tempted Abhinav to delay the new ball," added Kanitkar. On his part, Abhinav felt his on-field tactics were more on instincts than anything else. "It's about gut feeling, sometimes it comes off, sometimes it doesn't," Abhinav said.
The semifinal loss notwithstanding, the Abhinav-led team can take a lot of heart from their spirited performance through the season. TNCA secretary Kasi Viswanathan felt there were a lot of positives in the team's show this season. "It is disappointing because we lost, but the team showed a lot of fight throughout the season. Our batsmen - Abhinav, Dinesh Karthik, B Indrajith - were among runs while Kaushik Gandhi has been a revelation this season. As far as our bowlers are concerned, the likes of K Vignesh, Natarajan and Aswin Crist have had a great season," Kasi said.
For Abhinav, it was curtains to a season which saw him score 849 runs from 10 matches, thereby becoming the first player to score 800 or above on four occasions in the tournament history. "I didn't go out into this season setting any numerical targets for myself at the start. I have never done well when I have set numbers for myself, but I am happy with the way I am batting at the moment," he said.