Off-cutters: Daily Mumbai Ranji Trophy trivia
Mehli Irani
Mehli Irani is best known for playing the Kanga League for more than 50 years, but he also captained a Bombay University side in 1952-53 which had five future Test players (Nari Contractor, Naren Tamhane, CT Patankar, GR Sunderam and Ramnath Kenny). Yet, he was picked only once (1953-54) for Mumbai in the Ranji Trophy.
Vithal 'Marshal' Patil claimed a record 759 wickets in the Kanga League, but he played only a couple of games for Mumbai in the Ranji Trophy (1956-57 & 1957-58). Patil went on to be a prominent coach and helped in the emergence of Dilip Vengsarkar, Ravi Shastri and Sanjay Manjrekar through his coaching at Podar College.
Sudhir Naik led a Mumbai team which won the 1970-71 Ranji Trophy beating Maharastra in the final at Brabourne Stadium with five regulars on India duty in the West Indies — Ajit Wadekar, Dilip Sardesai, Ashok Mankad, Eknath Solkar and Sunil Gavaskar.
Maharashtra were so sure of beating Mumbai in the 1970-71 final that some Maharashtra Cricket Association officials booked a banquet hall of the Taj in Mumbai to celebrate. However, they collapsed for 205 and fell 48 runs short of their victory target.
Sandeep Patil started his Ranji Trophy career for Mumbai as a successful medium pacer. Coming in at No. 7 v Hyderabad in 1976, he got a duck, but opened the bowling and claimed four wickets, two of those being ex-stars, Abid Ali and ML Jaisimha.
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