From boys to men
"I am the man, that's what I am
I'm a straight shooter, with a master plan
I am the man, that's why I'm here
I am the man, I am the man
I am the last real cowboy
I roped the soul of the world
can I have your lights
can I have your mic's
I mean to be heard
I am a radio soldier
taking aim at the world..!"
So goes the lyrics of Kings Philosopher's "I am the Man”. This Ranji season saw many youngsters grabbing the oppurtunity with both hands to get noticed and stand apart in the highest version of domestic cricket in India.With age on their side, they are ready to tear apart any bowling attack, they are ready to breathe life into even a lifeless pitch, and they field as if they are performing some stunts from the movie 'Matrix'.
So when the people of their age would be engrossed in the books to be India's next engineers and doctors, or would be living their lives as if there is no tomorrow, these boys sweat it out, to be the next superstars of the cricket crazy nation called India.
This year saw many relatively unknown faces hog the limelight. I think, the essence of this year's ranji trophy was that youngsters fared better than some of the established names in the domestic circuit. Here are some of them, who have made their task of being remembered by the national selectors, a bit easier:
MANISH PANDEY (21Yrs): Prior to this season's Ranji trophy, he was known as the first Indian to score a century in IPL.But now onwards, he would also known for amassing most number of runs in this season of premier domestic tournament. This wonder kid has caught everyone's eye and the name 'Manish Pandey' is the hot topic for cricketing debates, as regards to whether he should be drafted into national team. With 882 runs from 9 matches and 4 centuries including the most important one coming in the crunch game against Mumbai., he can only become better.
AJINKYA RAHANE (22 Yrs): What Manish Pandey has done for Karnataka, Rahane has done the same for Mumbai. When the old warhorse Amol Muzumdar departed to join Assam, everyone thought that the Mumbai’s batting line-up would crumble under pressure situation. But Rahane has bought both stability and reliability in the batting line-up for Mumbai. With 809 runs from 9 matches, one can expect to see more of him in IPL-3 for Mumbai Indians.
ABHIMANYU MITHUN (21Yrs): On paper, Karnataka’s pace bowling attack looked like one of the weakest attack, before the start of the season. But now the wickets tally table tells a different tale, with top two spots occupied by Mithun and Vinay Kumar respectively. Mithun likes to bend his back and abstract some bounce from the pitch and also bowls some good Yorkers. He tops the wickets tally table with 47 wickets.
IQBAL ABDULLA (21 Yrs): The member of Under-19 WC winning team of 2008 edition, Iqbal has played a crucial role for Mumbai, both with the bat and ball. With Romesh Powar handling the spin department of Mumbai, you can expect any other rookie to get lost in the herd. But Iqbal with his unorthodox spin , Iqbal captured 32 wickets and also helped his team with some smart batting down the order.
CHIRAG PATHAK (23 Yrs): This Saurashta batsman can be termed little unfortunate, for he didn’t get to play too many matches, as his team was not able to advance to further rounds. From the 6 matches he played, he scored 601 runs.
G SATISH (22 Yrs), AMIT VERMA (23 Yrs), K.B. PAWAN (23 Yrs): If the Karnataka batting line-up looked so strong, even without Rahul Dravid, then the major credit goes to the trio of Satish, Amit and Pawan. They made sure that the middle-order was always rock solid and scored 639, 560 and 631 respectively.
Apart from these boys, there were many like Vinay Kumar, S.Aravind, Love Ablish, Uday Kaul, Piyush Chawla, Wasim Jaffer, etc who played some splendid cricket this season. But I have mentioned only those who are relatively young and the one’s who have not established themselves in the domestic circuit.
Do respond with comments, Whom you think have grown from boys to men?
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