Ranji Trophy Final: Ajinkya Rahane's Mumbai Eye 42nd Title But Vidarbha To Pose Tough Challenge

Led by an astute captain in Ajinkya Rahane, Mumbai will look to maintain their hegemony on Ranji Trophy with a 42nd title but a gutsy and battle-hardened Vidarbha won't make it easy for the legacy champions in the much-anticipated final starting in Mumbai tomorrow. In Mumbai, coming second best is never a consolation and nothing short of a title would satisfy the connoisseurs of Mumbai cricket sitting in the Garware pavilion of the Wankhede Stadium. Someone, who engineered India's greatest overseas series win in Australia three winters back, Rahane's international career has seen a sharp slump and right now he is not even in national reckoning.

Sample this. Even a specialist pacer Mohit Avasthi (192) has scored more runs compared to Rahane (134) who has had a dismal average of 13.4 throughout the tournament.

However Rahane's leadership skills have proven to be second to none as the old warhorse used his resources pretty well to take the team to its 48th summit clash.

He couldn't avail the services of an injured Suryakumar Yadav. Sarfaraz Khan wasn't available after being picked for India A and subsequently for the Test series. Shreyas Iyer avoided a few games on pretext of injury.

Prithvi Shaw (5 games), having recovered from injury only was available towards the business end. Shivam Dube, Shardul Thakur also played half of the games.

But in Mumbai, it is the team that plays and they have known how to win Ranji Trophy even when a Sunil Gavaskar, Sachin Tendulkar, Dilip Vengsarkar weren't available and the tradition has continued.

Even though his individual form deserted him, Rahane and his men found their way through all challenges en route to the final this year. They meet their match in two-time champions Vidarbha, who