At the end of play on Day 2, at the Sharad Pawar BKC ground on Sunday, Mumbai vice-captain Siddhesh Lad had called Shams Mulani the ‘crisis man’ of the team, admitting that the all-rounder was street smart, after coming through the ranks in domestic cricket.
While India’s depth in spin bowling all-rounders is at an all-time high, there is no denying that currently, few in first-class cricket match up to the 28-year-old’s consistency who, after making 69 runs in the first innings, claimed 5/37 in 15.1 overs on Monday to help Mumbai beat Himachal Pradesh (HP) by an innings and 120 runs to clinch the win with a bonus point and go on top of the points table.
It was his third fifer of the season and the second time that he had bowled Mumbai to a win, after taking a seven-wicket haul against Jammu & Kashmir in the season opener at Srinagar.
On Monday, on a surface that had started to take consistent turn and bounce with the afternoon sun beating down on it, Mulani was on the money from the word go, after the hosts had enforced the follow-on with 259 runs in the bank.
After the new ball pair of Tushar Deshpande and Shardul Thakur had reduced HP to 3/2, the left-handed duo of Ankit Kalsi and Pukhraj Mann had started a mini rebuild, putting on 47 runs for the third wicket. Captain Thakur may have been tempted to bring off-spinner Himanshu Singh on, but instead turned to his left arm spinner Mulani.
He was proven right as Mulani trapped the former lbw for 19. The dismissal would set the tone for the rest of the innings as on a pitch turning rapidly, the HP batters kept getting beaten while trying to play for the ball that went straight.
One of those deliveries accounted for the right-hander Ekant Sen, who fell to a ball which reared off a length, taking the outside edge and landing in Ayush Mhatre’s hands at slip.
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Barring Mann, who made a valiant 65, every other batter found it hard to score off Mulani, who kept hitting the requisite length to generate the turn and bounce to beat the bat regularly.
While there is little doubt over his ability to win a match on his own, he was assisted by another left-arm spinner at the other end, with Musheer Khan getting two wickets to chip away at the opposition batting line-up.
It allowed Mulani to bowl at less threatening batters, and he ran through the lower-order to finish the match and take his season tally to 24 wickets.
While Tanush Kotian’s performances have led to India A call-ups and even a late national call-up for the Australia tour early this year, Mulani continues to toil away without getting selected for either the ‘A’ sides or the senior side.
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Thakur said that he was hopeful about Mulani getting his due soon, admitting that only 15 players could get picked for either India ‘A’ or for India.
“I feel India has a lot of talented pool, and it’s really up to selectors what they are looking at. And the kind of performances Shams is putting up, he will get his due, I am sure, one fine day. And India is a big country, so we need to understand that only 15 people can play for India or only 15 people can play for India A, so that makes the count to 30. And we have got more than hundreds of good players playing in the country. So he will get his due at some point; he just needs to be patient at the moment,” Thakur said at the end of the match.
Pukhraj plays lone hand
Walking out to bat with the score reading 3/2 can be hard on most days, but when your team is following on with 259 runs staring at you, the pressure only goes up a notch. Under such circumstances, HP needed someone to show some steel in the middle, and in left-hander Mann, they found the one batter who was willing to show the desired resilience.
The southpaw made 65 off 102 balls, looking organised in the middle and showing superb backfoot play, especially against spin on a surface that was worsening by the over. Mann, who was seen in a long conversation with Sarfaraz Khan after the game ended, also showed his front foot play, cover driving the pacers for boundaries more than once to keep the board ticking.
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HP would have hoped for one other batter to play with a similar approach, but Mumbai kept chipping away at the wickets to eventually hand them their second loss of the season.
Brief scores: Mumbai 446 beat HP 187 and 139 in 49.1 overs (Mann 65, Gangta 23; Mulani 5/37). Points: Mumbai 7, HP 0
