In the hidden nodes of Sachin Baby’s memory the sullen afternoon in Wayanad six seasons ago lurks. He stiffly denies lingering pieces of the semifinal heartbreak that Vidarbha inflicted on Kerala, watched on by the forested hills. “I have buried the memories of the game a long time ago,” he tells The Indian Express.
But like hard-to-forget tragedies, the game remains vivid in his consciousness, the details emerging organically when he dwells on the final that unfolds from Wednesday at the Jamtha Stadium. Like he says, “This Vidarbha is vastly different from that Vidarbha.” Then he goes on describing the mastery of Umesh Yadav, who blew “stronger than the winds on that day.” Or when he insists on “not committing silly errors,” and draws a parallel with “the run out that ended his second innings.”
The Kerala captain mumbles “misjudgment” twice.
9⃣ matches
8⃣ wins
1⃣ draw (With first innings lead)Vidarbha have been dominant this season, showcasing top-class cricket 💪
Here’s how they reached their 4⃣th #RanjiTrophy Final 👌👌#RoadToFinal pic.twitter.com/gthX0eq9KQ
— BCCI Domestic (@BCCIdomestic) February 25, 2025
For cricketers of a team that has enjoyed sparse success in the game — they have qualified for the knockouts thrice — such moments remain etched in their consciousness. It doesn’t allay the pain because in their historic final they are meeting the same side that had halted their progress in the knockouts before. Vidarbha is Kerala’s knockout kryptonite, so much that Vidarbha can measure their progress through the Kerala knockouts. They smashed them by 412 runs in the quarterfinals before marching to claim the Ranji Trophy for the first time; en route to the title defence, they steamrollered Kerala. Sachin was the captain in both games. “Onnil pizhachal moonu,” he says, a Malayalam idiom that is the English equivalent of third-time lucky, grinning. “We have beaten them in group games after that. So they are not a psychological barrier. But they are a team from which we could take a lot of lessons,” Sachin says.
Therein lies the central narrative of the game too — Kerala trying to giant-kill the original giant-killers. In Vidarbha, they could blink at their own mini reflection. Thinly talented and with threadbare lineage of international cricketers — even though the legendary CK Nayudu was born in Nagpur and turned up for Central Provinces for a decade, just as star-starved Malayalis boasted about Anil Kumble being born in a village in the Kerala-Karnataka border — they were India’s cricketing wilderness. If Kerala’s monsoon spells stymied cricket’s seamless growth, prolonged droughts slackened Vidarbha’s quest. To replicate the Vidarbha model of success, Kerala even hired Chandrakant Pandit as director for two years.
Stubborn streak
The masterful coach is widely credited for the emergence. He instilled in Vidarbha a stubborn streak, a bit of khadoos from their neighbours Mumbai, a sense of quiet tenacity, acquired from the numerous slips it had slipped in its journey to become a contemporary cricketing powerhouse.
Whereas as they once relied predominantly on the large pool of borrowed cricketers, the import cast is dwindling. The new crop of home-grown players from one of India’s driest regions is inspiring, from Harsh Dubey to Yash Rathod.
A lot of factors over a lengthy span of diligent planning have contributed to their coming of age. But predominant among them, Vidarbha captain Akshay Wadkar, sums up succinctly, is their awareness of limitations: “We are a team with limitations, always been like that, but we have to learn to overcome that. We understand that we need to be aware of our weaknesses better than we know our strengths. We cannot go into the final believing that we could win the match because we have won finals before and they have not.”
Acing pressure situations & winning crunch moments 🧊 💪
Here’s how Kerala made it to their maiden #RanjiTrophy Final 👌👌#RoadToFinal pic.twitter.com/x6qSrr2jZZ
— BCCI Domestic (@BCCIdomestic) February 24, 2025
It could be the guiding principle of Kerala too. They are a team with flaws. The top order has been woozy and the middle order unstable. Apart from Salman Nizar and Mohammed Azharudheen, no one has scored a century in the entire campaign. Conversely, Vidarbha’s Yash Rathod himself reeled off five; Karun Nair stroked three. The hosts could boast of four batsmen who have piled in excess of 500 runs, with Rathod 77 away from 1,000 runs, whereas only Salman and Azharudheen have amassed 500-plus runs for their adversaries. Kerala have been over-reliant on the two spinners — Jalaj Saxena and Aditya Sarwate — and the seamer MD Nidheesh. Vidarbha have a more equitable distribution of wicket-taking burden, even though left-arm spinner Harsh Dubey has been the standout performer with 66 wickets. Whilst Vidarbha won eight of their nine games outrightly, Kerala mustered only three wins in their heroic scrape to the final.
It is the bleeding obvious that Vidarbha enter the final as the overwhelming favourites, though Wadkar insists the tab is uncomfortable in the true nature of underdog forebears. But if Wadkar and his teammates observe closely, they could see flashes of the spirit they displayed in the year they kissed the Ranji Trophy for the first time.
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They have bounced back from the brink, scrambled back on their feet from crushing punches on their face, unearthed unexpected heroes in duress, and they raged against the seemingly irrevocable doom. Wadkar puts Kerala’s strengths in perspective: “Yes, they enjoyed moments of luck, but to reach the final as they had, playing some close matches and all away from home, you have to give them a lot of credit. They are an experienced team, have a good record on this ground (they have never lost a game here), and have some really wonderful cricketers. Winning close games will give you the belief that nothing is impossible. That is dangerous.”
Numerous nearly-moments in the past decade have emboldened Kerala. “There were times we have missed the knockout qualification by a point or two, when we have somehow contrived to lose games from winning position, and some games we just didn’t turn up,” Sachin says.
He didn’t mention the game, but the horrors of the Wayanad game must have flashed through his mind. He would seek closure to those haunting memories. But here again, Vidarbha, Kerala’s knockout kryptonite, is gnashing its teeth at them ready for the kill.