Image Credit- KKR
Nitish Rana was feeling both familiar and foreign on
Saturday as he basked in his teammates’ adulation after improving from 99 to
100. Although it was his first hundred in almost four years, it was his seventh
in 47 games as a first-class player.
Between his sixth and seventh hundreds, when he
averaged 27.07 in first-class cricket and only twice in 17 innings reached 50,
a lot had transpired.
That lean run and the fact that Rana had played so few
innings during that time were both largely caused by one particular event.
Covid-19 has swept the globe, interfering with India’s cricket schedule among
other things. In 2021, with the IPL split into two legs across two countries
due to the pandemic’s second wave striking India, there was not a single
first-class domestic cricket match played. Rana looked away from the red ball
as all of this was going on.
“During the Covid years, when the IPL was held in
two phases, I had stopped focusing on red-ball cricket a little bit,” Rana
told reporters at the Wankhede Stadium. “So that set me back somewhat.
This year I have worked very hard with the red ball because I wanted to prove,
not to anyone else but myself, that I can be a good red-ball player.”
It’s common knowledge that Rana is capable of
producing extremely influential red-ball cricket innings. For example, in a
successful fourth-innings chase of 347 against Vidarbha, who had won the Ranji
Trophy back-to-back in the previous two seasons, he scored an undefeated 105
off 68 balls. It wasn’t all that different from the struggle Rana overcame on
Saturday.
Uttar Pradesh had a total of 198 when he arrived, and
they were 136 for 4, quickly rising to 152 for 5. Mumbai had won their previous
three games, including two with bonus points, going into this one.
With two consecutive sixes off Shams Mulani’s left-arm
spin, the first of which brushed the fingertips of a leaping deep midwicket
fielder, Rana’s response was absolutely classic. In the end, Rana scored 106
runs off of 120 balls, including 12 fours and five sixes, to give UP a 126-run
lead in the first innings.
It was an enjoyable endeavour in multiple aspects. It
bolstered Rana’s confidence as a red-ball player, and it worked out perfectly
for UP, who appointed him captain following his departure from Delhi prior to
the 2023–24 season.
“Hundred always gives you satisfaction,”
Rana said. “It was my mistake that I wasn’t focusing on red-ball cricket.
A lot of people had started talking that I wasn’t a red-ball player and I would
not have had to listen to that talk [if I had given the format more attention].
From the time I switched from Delhi, my target has been to make my name in
red-ball cricket again.”
“I won’t call it a big knock,” he said.
“A big knock is 300. But I remember in 2020 or 21 I [made] my last
hundred. I had lost the habit of scoring hundreds. I now know how to [make]
hundreds. A big one is around the corner this season.”