Ranji Trophy: From multiple titles with Mumbai to historic win with MP, revisiting Chandrakant Pandit's trophy-laden run

Chandrakant Pandit has done it again! The man who captained Madhya Pradesh to the final of the 1998-99 Ranji Trophy and came agonisingly close before being denied the silverware by Karnataka has finally delivered its first-ever triumph in the premier First-Class competition. And boy did his team pull off the feat in style, outperforming 41-time champions and favourites Mumbai by six wickets in the final in Bengaluru’s iconic M Chinnaswamy Stadium, the very venue where he had suffered a heartbreak as captain 23 years ago. With this triumph, Pandit has now taken his Ranji Trophy title count to six and has ensured that his name will consistently pop up every time someone draws up a list of elite Indian coaches. Winning Ranji titles of course, isn’t anything new for Pant. The wicketkeeper-batter from Mumbai, who made five Test and 36 ODI appearances in an international career spanning six years between 1986 and 1992, took up coaching not too long after calling it a day as an active cricketer in the 2001 season. As we celebrate his sixth Ranji title, we take a look at some of the high points from Pandit’s illustrious run as a coach over the past two decades: Mumbai (3 Ranji Trophy titles) Pandit had two stints as coach of the Mumbai team, and was victorious in both. His first run as coach of the powerhouse side came shortly after his days as an active cricketer ground to a halt in the 2000-01 season. Pandit coached the team that he represented himself for the longest time to back-to-back titles in the 2002-03 and 2003-04 seasons, the team beating Tamil Nadu on both occasions, with Paras Mhambrey and Sairaj Bahutule serving as the captains respectively. Pandit would then leave Mumbai and coach sides such as Maharashtra, Kerala and even serve as the Director of Cricket with Rajasthan before returning for another stint with his home team, taking over the reins of the side from Pravin Amre in the 2015-16 season. Under Pandit’s tutelage, Mumbai would win the latest of their 41 titles, with the Aditya Tare-led side beating Saurashtra by an innings and 21 runs in the summit clash in Pune. Vidarbha (2 Ranji Trophy titles; 2 Irani Cup titles) While guiding Mumbai to three Ranji titles was no mean feat, coaching a relatively unheralded side such as Vidarbha to back-to-back victories perhaps could be described as the moment that forced the Indian cricket fraternity to sit up and take notice of something special happening on their turf. Pandit joined the Vidarbha setup on the back of three Ranji titles with his home state Mumbai, given the task of bringing his hard taskmaster-style of coaching over to an unfamiliar setup and steering a team that had never gone beyond the quarter-finals in the past to it maiden title. There was no change in Pandit’s demeanour as he stuck to his hard taskmaster approach with the Nagpur-based outfit. Pandit event went to the extent of admitting that he wouldn’t hesitate to land a slap on skipper Faiz Fazal’s cheek if it meant getting the job done. [caption id=“attachment_10839541” align=“alignnone” width=“640”]  Chandrakant Pandit coached Vidarbha to back-to-back Ranji Trophy and Irani Cup titles in an eventful three-year run. PTI[/caption] “Chandu Pandit is very strict. I talk with a lot of emotion, and some people don’t like the way I operate, but I understand it is my job. My way of doing things is different. I might also slap Faiz, and there will be a reason behind it. Don’t take it wrongly, but that is a process that takes you close to destination,” Pandit told this website back in 2019 . And the approach did work wonders in the end as the captain-coach combination of Fazal and Pandit not only guided Vidarbha to their maiden Ranji Trophy triumph with a nine-wicket thrashing on Delhi in 2017-18, but made the team only the sixth in the history of the premier competition to successfully defend the title, beating Saurashtra by 78 runs in the 2018-19 final. And it’s not just the Ranji Trophy where Vidarbha prospered — under Fazal and Pandit, Vidarbha would win consecutive Irani Cup titles too. Madhya Pradesh (1 title) After transforming Vidarbha from a mid-table side to a genuine title contender in an eventful three-year run, Pandit moved further north to Indore where he would join the Madhya Pradesh cricket team on a two-year contract. It was a sort of homecoming for Pandit as he had spent the final chapter of his playing career with MP and had led them to the final of the 1998-99 season, where they fell short by 96 runs in the final hurdle against Karnataka at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium. Pandit though had to wait for more than a year before he could make an impact with the new team as the coronavirus pandemic had forced the BCCI to cancel the 2020-21 season. As always, there was no compromise on Pandit’s style of coaching as the veteran coach immediately brought about a sense of discipline in the squad and was very demanding in his quest to get the very best out skipper Aditya Shrivastava and the rest of the squad. Also Read: Majority of the states need a coach like Chandrakant Pandit for success, says Wasim Jaffer Whether it was organising more than 400 camps with the squad or sometimes asking the players to assemble late at night, according to Hindustan Times. The result: an undefeated run all the way to the final before humbling 41-time champions Mumbai in a clinical manner at the very venue where Pandit had suffered a heartbreak as captain more than two decades ago. This time, it was tears of joy that he shed at the Chinnaswamy as he celebrated the achievement of guiding yet another unfancied team in the Indian domestic setup to its maiden triumph in the premier First-Class tournament. “It is a great memory that I had left 23 years back (he lost the Ranji Trophy final as MP captain in 1998-99) and it is a blessing that I come back here, and winning this trophy was fabulous. It is emotional because I missed out as captain on the same ground,” Pandit said after MP’s six-wicket victory over Mumbai on Sunday. Read all the Latest News ****, Trending News ****, Cricket News ****, Bollywood News ****, India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook****, Twitter and Instagram****.