New Delhi: It was a team that had spent decades on the margins of Indian domestic cricket, but on Saturday, as captain Paras Dogra declared the innings, Jammu & Kashmir were no longer the underdog story. They defeated eight-time winners Karnataka on the basis of a first innings lead of 291 runs after the game was drawn. They were champions, history-makers.
For the first time since their Ranji journey began in 1959, J&K have a title to call their own. A moment carved out of resilience and an unshakeable belief that they belonged, despite infrastructural and systematic deficits.
The J&K chief minister, Omar Abdullah, and bigwigs of the administration, cricket and government, were at Hubballi to witness the etch the moment for a lifetime.
Having dominated the match on each of the five days, Qamran Iqbal and Sahil Lotra laced the occasion with an unbeaten 197–run stand to rub in the domination over their formidable opponents. Iqbal, on 94 overnight, registered a magnificent Ranji final century – his second first-class ton. It was doubly special as Iqbal was originally dropped but called up on a day’s notice after the injury to senior batter and opener Shubham Khajuria. The Srinagar player rushed to the ground off his flight. He finished with an unbeaten 160, a contribution that will taste sweeter.
J&K looked to declare – they buried Karnataka with a massive 584-run overall lead – but not before Sahil Lotra also bringing up his century. Lotra too had replaced the injured Vanshaj Sharma and the all-rounder turned up, and how – an unbeaten 101 in the second innings, 72 in the first and 1/50 in the first innings.
It ended up being a wicketless day for Karnataka – who saw the writing on the wall on Day 4 itself – as they were thoroughly out-batted and out-bowled. Their only chance to get back in the game was to dismiss J&K cheaply in their second innings and then chase it down. They even had J&K wobble at 11/2, but Iqbal saw off the new ball with an unorthodox technique and footwork that threw the bowlers’ lines off. He stitched back-to-back fifty-run partnerships with Dogra (16) and Abdul Samad (32) to take the game further away from Karnataka.
“Today, there was a wave in the country that wanted to see J&K win,” coach Ajay Sharma told the broadcaster. “Even last year the momentum was great, we were winning outright. But missing out by 1 run against Kerala in the quarter-final last year was a great reminder of small margins. We thought that loss would haunt us for long but it didn’t.”
Auqib Nabi finished as the season’s leading wicket-taker – 60 scalps after a five-wicket haul in the first innings. After initial hiccups in the season and being dropped, Samad finished the team’s leading run-scorer with 749 runs.
“I have no words, to be honest, I think it will take some time to describe what I’m feeling right now,” said Dogra – the 41-year-old scored 637 runs and crossed 10,000 Ranji runs. “I’m very lucky that I got a group like this, I got an association like this that supported and to rub shoulders with these guys. It just has been amazing.”
He added that missing out on semi-final qualification by one run last season motivated them to go all the way this season. “We learned from that one run. From the beginning we were talking about that… each and every run is very crucial from the league games. So, whenever we went in, we were like just give your 100 percent, whatever the result is, we don’t care, but we just don’t want to repeat it again.”
As they celebrate the historic win, something transformational could unfold in the backdrop. For a region that has no dearth of talent, players hope that many more young ones will be nudged to pick up bat and ball.
The infrastructure in J&K still pales in comparison with the powerhouses they outplayed this season, but their journey will serve as an inspiration to the less privileged that they too can make it despite the odds stacked against them. And perhaps this victory is not just a moment for jubilant celebrations, but the first ripple in the wave of lasting change.
