What region dominates Pakistani team?
Aai ga! Mumbai ‘penta’ takes guard again
Devendra Pandey
Mumbai, June 19: With four other guys from Mumbai, it’s a bit easy. During the Ranji Trophy final some months back, I have shared the dressing room with Sachin Tendulkar, Ajit Agarkar, Zaheer Khan and Ramesh Powar. They all are there in the Indian team and that certainly helps.”
That explains why debutant Rohit Sharma is a bit edgy but not unduly anxious as he packs his kit bag to get ready for the ODI series in Ireland. And the 20-year-old is among the five who bring back a familiar look to the Indian team after a long time.
The last time five Mumbai players were in the Indian squad was in 1992. And by a strange coincidence, the senior-most member of that team happens to be chairman of selectors Dilip Vengsarkar. The others in that team 15 years back were Ravi Shastri, Sanjay Manjrekar, Chandrakant Pandit and Sachin Tendulkar.
Pandit felt the same in 1992 as Sharma does today. “When you know most of the people in the team it takes the pressure off. I had played with the other Mumbai boys in local matches and since they knew my pros and cons it helped.”
While elsewhere in the country there are whispers about the west’s overwhelming control over Indian cricket and the subsequent Mumbai “penta” for the Ireland series, it’s not so in the city that houses the Indian cricket board’s headquarters.
Ranji coach Praveen Amre justifies Mumbai’s high five. “These players have earned their place in the side after a good performance in the domestic circuit. It is not that they got in easily,” says the man who secured Mumbai’s 37th Ranji title this year.
Ask former India skipper Ajit Wadekar about the “Mumbai fives” and he breaks into a chuckle. “In my team there were at times seven or more players from Mumbai. But you can say that we passed through a bad phase. I’m happy that we are back in the business,” says the former India coach.
So will Marathi be the language in the Indian dressing room? Five from Mumbai and the captain a non-resident Maharashtrian. Aai ga!