Ranji Trophy 2018/19 stats review: Champions Vidarbha enter elite club, Wasim Jaffer adds more feathers to his cap and more

Vidarbha successfully defended their Ranji Trophy title by beating Saurashtra by 78 runs at Nagpur in the grand finale, becoming only the sixth team in the history of the tournament to win back-to-back editions.

It brought to an end a season that saw top sides like Mumbai, Delhi and Baroda fail to make it to the quarters, while Kerala continued their fairytale run under coach Dav Whatmore’s tenure , reaching the semi-final for the first time ever.

Let’s now look at some of the records broken and created during the recently-concluded season:

— This was the third time that Saurashtra reached into the finals of Ranji Trophy — 2012/13, 2015/16 and 2018/19. Interestingly, they lost on each of the three occasions.

— Vidarbha became the sixth team to successfully defend their title after Bombay/Mumbai, Maharashtra, Delhi, Rajasthan and Karnataka.

— Milind Kumar (Sikka) amassed 1,331 runs from 14 innings at an average of 121.00 in the Ranji Trophy 2018/19, the second most by any player in a single season of Ranji Trophy after VVS Laxman (1,415 runs from 14 innings in the 1999/00 seasons while playing for Hyderabad).

— Wasim Jaffer became the first player to score 1,000-plus runs in two different seasons of Ranji Trophy. He scored 1,260 runs for Mumbai in 2008/09 while in 2018/19, playing for Vidarbha, he scored 1,037 runs from 15 innings at an average of 69.13. He also became the first player to score 11,000 runs in the Ranji Trophy history earlier in the season.

— Jaffer now holds the record of playing most matches in the history of Ranji Trophy, going past Devendra Bundela’s record of playing 145 matches for Madhya Pradesh. Jaffer has played 149 matches so far in Ranji Trophy.

— Milind’s batting average of 121.00 in the Ranji Trophy 2018/19 is the third highest for a batsman with 1,000-plus runs in a single season of Ranji Trophy after Rusi Modi (201.60 in 1944/45) and WV Raman (145.42 in 1988/89).

— Pankaj Kumar became the first pacer in the Ranji Trophy to pick up 400-plus wickets during the season. He has now taken 409 wickets at an average of 22.52 from 93 matches in Ranji Trophy history. He also went past Sunil Joshi’s record of picking up a five-for against most number of teams in the history of Ranji Trophy (16). Pankaj Singh has now taken a five-for against 18 different teams.

— Ashutosh Aman (Bihar) picked up 68 wickets in this season of Ranji Trophy, which is the most for any bowler in a single season of Ranji Trophy. He went past Bishen Singh Bedi’s record of 64 wickets which he took while playing for Delhi in 1974/75 season.

— Paras Dogra has now scored eight double centuries in Ranji Trophy, the most by any player, going past Ajay Sharma’s record of seven double centuries. He has scored one double century for Puducherry while seven for Himachal Pradesh.

— Naman Ojha now holds the record of effecting most dismissals in the history of Ranji Trophy with 351 dismissals to his name. He went past Vinayak Samant’s (335)  record to achieve the landmark.

— Saurashtra successfully chased down 372 runs in their quarter-final game against Uttar Pradesh which is now the highest target successfully chased in the fourth innings of a Ranji Trophy match, going past 371 runs chased by Assam against Services in 2008/09.

— Madhya Pradesh’s Ajay Rohera now holds the record of scoring most runs on first-class as well as Ranji Trophy debut. He scored an unbeaten 267 on his first-class debut against Hyderabad. He went past Amol Muzumdar’s 260 runs which he scored against Haryana in 1993/94 season.

— Meghalaya became the first team to post 800-plus runs since 1993/94 when Hyderabad scored 944/6 declared against Andhra in Secunderabad in Ranji Trophy. Meghalaya scored 826/7d against Sikkim in Bhubaneshwar during this season.

— Uttar Pradesh defeated Tripura by an innings and 384 runs in the league stage match played at Lucknow which is now the sixth largest innings win in the history of Ranji Trophy.

— Puneet Bisht was the only player to score a triple-century in Ranji Trophy 2018/19. He scored 343 runs against Sikkim at Bhubaneshwar. He hit 53 fours during his knock of 343 runs.