Vidarbha skipper Faiz Fazal joined an elite list of players after guiding his team to successive Ranji Trophy title wins at the VCA Stadium in Nagpur on Thursday. The defending champions beat Saurashtra by 78 runs to win their second title in as many seasons.

Fazal became only the 11th player in the history of India’s domestic circuit to lead a team to successive Ranji titles. The first cricketer to do so was Maharashtra’s D. B. Deodhar, who achieved the feat in 1940, 1941.

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Legendary Bombay cricketer Ajit Wadekar managed to do so twice during the course of his illustrious career. Wadekar achieved it in 1969 & 1970 and then again in 1972 & 1973. The only captain to pull this off thrice in a row was Bombay’s Bapu Nadkarni – 1964, 1965 and 1966.

“Everyone thought it was a fluke when we won last year and we were under pressure to retain the title. But our focus was process, we never bothered about reputation,” Vidarbha’s talismanic coach Chandrakant Pandit said after the end of the match.

Earlier on the fifth day, Vidarbha needed five wickets to defend their title while Saurashtra, in a chase of 206, were left a mountain to climb and needed 148 to win their maiden title after a top-order collapse on Wednesday.

Overnight batsmen Vishvaraj Jadeja (52) and Kamlesh Makvana (14) batted resolutely for the first hour but once the partnership was broken, the end was inevitable for Saurashtra.

Man of the match left-arm spinner Aditya Sarwate claimed three of the five wickets that fell on Thursday, to end with career-best match figures of 11/57. He took six for 59 in the second innings.It was his maiden haul of 10 or more wickets in a first-class match. He had scalped five batsmen in the first innings.

((With agency inputs))

First Published: Feb 07, 2019 14:50 IST