Smashing a four down fine leg, Wasim Jaffer not only helped Vidarbha win their first Ranji Trophy title in Indore on Monday, 1 January, but also maintained his record of being in the winning side of all nine finals of the domestic tournament, that he has played.
The 39-year-old cricketer, who has played 19 Ranji seasons with Mumbai before shifting to Vidarbha, scored 78 in the first innings and finished the game for Vidarbha with an unbeaten 17 runs.
After playing first-class cricket for years, 39-year-old Jaffer is the senior-most player in Vidarbha, who played its first-ever Ranji Trophy final.
With 10,738 runs from 138 matches, Wasim Jaffer has the most runs by a cricketer in the premier domestic tournament.
Jaffer is over 1,500 runs ahead of Amol Muzumdar – who with 9,202 runs in 136 games – has the second-highest runs in the Ranji Trophy.
Jaffer’s Journey
After making his first-class debut in 1996/97, Jaffer scored a triple century in only his second first-class game. He went on to make his Test debut in 2000 and has since scored a total of 1,944 runs in 31 matches, including 5 tons and 11 half-centuries.
A disappointing performance in his Test debut found Jaffer dropped from the team. However, he found his way back for the 2002 West Indies tour after consistently doing well in the domestic circuit. But inconsistent performances in international cricket saw him back to playing only domestic cricket for the next three years before being called on for India’s third Test against Sri Lanka in 2005-06.
Once there, Jaffer capitalised on the opportunity by scoring his maiden Test hundred against England at Nagpur followed by a double ton against West Indies in June 2006.
Jaffer was replaced by Gautam Gambhir in the Test team, but managed to power on in domestic all these years. Besides scoring a triple hundred in a massive 2008-09 Ranji season, where he scored a total of 1,260 runs, Jaffer has captained Mumbai to two Ranji titles.
In fact, even as the 39-year-old’s nephew Armaan Jaffer has found a place in the Mumbai Ranji’s team, Jaffer is showing no signs of slowing down.
(This piece has been republished from The Quint’s archives for Wasim Jaffer’s 40th birthday. This articles was originally published on 2 January 2018.)
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