Gujarat's Ranji success: How Parthiv Patel inspired a team to realize their dream

Kai Po Che. A victory shot. A phrase that every Gujarati kid screams when he cuts off his competitor’s kite. A phrase all too familiar to the members of the Gujarat dressing room. A phrase that they can now repeat to themselves with an unprecedented sense of satisfaction and contentment.

A Ranji Trophy win can be a surreal feeling. Here was a group of lads who have put in the efforts day in and day out without reaping the fabled benefits that hard work and perseverance are supposed to bring. A Vijay Hazare title or a Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy can never be enough consolation for losing out on the Ranji knockouts year after year.

In 2013-14, the last league match found Gujarat at 26 points as opposed to Mumbai’s 23. A first innings lead would have been adequate to take them through, but they squandered it and ended up 27 runs short, chasing 175 in the final innings. Two seasons later, they failed to make the cut once again, this time because of a run rate fractionally lower than Madhya Pradesh.

It stung like a tender wound. Hovering on the fringes for so long and not being able to come through hurt. There was a strange feeling of exclusion. It was as if being told that they were good, but not good enough.

Near-misses can take one to crossroads in life. One path leads to the chasms of frustration and depression from which few recover, while the other paves the way for inspirational turnarounds – the sort that makes a good plot for a film.

Gujarat, thankfully, had Parthiv Patel, a man who wasn’t unacquainted with comebacks in his personal life, at the helm to guide the team on the latter path.

“We always knew we are a good side, a better one than the results we got in Ranji Trophy in the last three-four years,” says Parthiv. “We’ve believed that we can make a comeback from any situation. We’re not going to let the game go till it is finished.”

Indeed, Jasprit Bumrah’s spell against Mumbai, Hardik Patel’s 11/143 against Uttar Pradesh, and RP Singh’s valiant efforts in the semifinal are a testament to that.

At 5’3”, the 31-year-old is far from intimidating. In fact, with his boyish face, he barely looks like a senior. Perhaps this is what has helped him to blend uninhibitedly among his teammates – some of whom are quite younger than him – sharing their concerns, encouraging and motivating them in a way only a friend can.

Gujarat has been an embodiment of friendship and camaraderie. In Manpreet Juneja’s words, "Lot of us have played junior cricket together, so this in a way is the coming together of a core group who have graduated together. It just feels like an extension of the junior days. There are no insecurities, because Parthiv would have it no other way. Everyone celebrates the other's success."

The team dines together, watches movies together, and even went on a short vacation to Goa together. It was a matter of choice, not compulsion, and that fact has made the team as closely knit as a family. The assurance that someone was always there to have his back can do wonders to a man’s confidence, and the likes of Priyank Panchal and Samit Gohel are living proof of that.

More than a fair share of credit goes to the skipper though. With 15 seasons of first-class cricket under his belt, Parthiv could have opted for any other side that was tasting regular success in the domestic circuit. But he didn’t. The strongest steel is forged in the hottest fire. And Parthiv made sure his was strong enough to make an indelible mark on the face of history.

2016-17 was destined to be a groundbreaking season. Too many so-close-but-not-quite moments in the recent past had made the squad hungry for that elusive success. They wanted it bad, real bad. It wasn’t a matter of qualifying to the knockouts anymore; they were desperate for the title. ‘Eleven matches’ was the common mantra inside the dressing room.

“Even in practice, whenever we spoke, it was in terms of winning the championship and not just reaching the quarterfinals. And not just the team, our coaches, physios and trainers too talked in terms of playing 11 matches,” Panchal says. “I think mindset was the key. We were playing well for seven matches and stumbling in the eighth earlier. It was not a question of mental fatigue or pressure, but we were giving more importance to the eighth match.”

Since the beginning of the season, the team has had clear goals. Everyone knew their individual roles along with the bigger plan. More than anything, it was the intense desire to lift the coveted trophy that unified the squad.

Now that they have done that, it may take quite some time for the feeling to sink in. Axar Patel was not part of the Gujarat side for the finals, but he flew to Indore the moment he sensed history was waiting to be scripted there. As he joined in the celebrations after the match, one could almost identify with the sentiments. The joy was palpable, the revelry infectious.

Sachin Tendulkar once said, “Don’t stop chasing your dreams, because dreams do come true.” For Parthiv’s men, this was a collective dream – one that was borne out of frustration, disappointment and misery, and shaped into reality with tears, blood and sweat. Kai Po Che – this was Gujarat’s cut to glory.