According to Warren Buffet, principles of life and investing often parallel each other. He says ‘you only have to do a very few things right in your life so long as you don’t do too many things wrong”!! Can you identify this good looking Cricketer ?
One should feel sorry for today’s children – for often they are pressurised into doing or becoming whatever their parents wanted to achieve [but never achieved perhaps] in life. Cricket is a religion in India – and after IPL success story – there is big money. Many parents want their ward to do well in studies – still more parents want their wards to learn arts and sports and put them in camps. City grounds are abuzz with children whose parents aspire making their son become a Sachin Tendulkar, MS Dhoni, Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma (some of them may not be aware of the likes of Bedi, Chandra, Venkat Raghavan, Wadekar, Gavaskar, Kapil Dev !!).
Before the advent of T20 & IPL, cricketers rose from domestic tournaments – premier amongst them being the Ranji Trophy [named after Kumar Shri Ranjitsinhji (Jam Sahib of Nawanagar, also known as "Ranji"] – the domestic first class cricket championship played between different State sides. This competition was launched in 1934 – though most of the teams represent States (Tamilnadu, Andhra, Kerala, Haryana, Rajasthan etc.,) there are teams like Mumbai, Baroda, Hyderabad, Delhi and then there is the Railways and Services. For long Ranji trophy matches were followed keenly and scores in those matches captured greater attention.
Not many would have followed the Elite Group C match at Thumbar ecently between Kerala and Uttar Pradesh. Kerala won by an innings and 117 runs – the man of the match was a Veteran !!!!!
This Cricketer was born in Dec 1986 in Indore, Madhya Pradesh. His father was a professional swimmer who was employed in Bhilai Steel Plant. He took up toe swimming but was allergic, so he was pushed to Cricket – he was initially aspired to becoming a fast bowling allrounder but ended up an off-spinner. He represented Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh before turning up for Kerala. Besides his batting prowess, he has been highly successful – and ended up the highest wicket taker in 2022-23 season too claiming 50 wickets in 7 matches.
At Thumba, couple of days back, Kerala beat UP with a bonus point to consolidate their second spot in Group C. It's their second win in four games, orchestrated by that man, Jalaj Saxena. Though it was written in all media, he did not get the limelight or fanfare of becoming the first player in Ranji history to achieve the double of 6000 runs and 400 wickets during the course of his 29th five-wicket haul in first-class cricket that skittled Uttar Pradesh for 162 in the first innings. Then Kerala opened up a 233-run lead before Jalaj got stuck right in, picking up six wickets - his 30th five-for - as UP have been shot out for 116 on the final day in Thumba.
It has all along been an inspirational story of Jalaj Saxena now achieving the massive feat of 6000 runs and 400 wickets in Ranji. Sadly, he has never don Indian colours in any form of International Cricket. Now at 37, he is more of a veteran, who would fade in a couple or more of seasons adding some more wickets and runs !!
Saxena was four wickets short of the 400 mark when he entered the match against Uttar Pradesh and started off by claiming the wicket of Aryan Juyal (23 off 57) and then dismissed Madhav Kaushik (13 off 58), Siddharth Yadav (19 off 25) and Rana (25 off 46) to achieve the feat. The 37-year-old became the 13th player to claim 400 wickets in the Ranji Trophy, and it seems like he is in no mood to stop considering his current form, as he has already claimed a couple of five-wicket hauls this season. Nine times Jalaj has taken 10 wickets or more in a match in FC.
He has been part of many IPL teams without big success. He was with MI in 2013 & 2014 seasons, RCB in 2015; then bought by the Delhi Capitals in the player auction for the 2019 Indian Premier League but was released by the Delhi Capitals ahead of the 2020 IPL auction. In Feb 2021, Saxena was bought by the Punjab Kings & made his IPL debut for Punjab against Delhi Capitals.
The 400 club has 13 ! : ironically its topper Rajinder Goel, never played for India. Here is that elite list : 637 – Rajinder Goel; 530 – S Venkataraghavan; 479 – Sunil Joshi; 442 – R Vinay Kumar; 441 – Narendra Hirwani; 437 – Bhagwat Chandrasekhar; 418 – VV Kumar; 416 – Shahbaz Nadeem; 409 – Pankaj Singh; 405 – Sairaj Bahutule; 403 – Bishan Singh Bedi; 401 – Utpal Chatterjee; 401* -Jalaj Saxena.
the top 5 run-amassers in Ranji history thus far are : Wasim Jaffer 12038; Amol Mazumdar 9202; Devendra Singh Bundela 9201; Paras Dogra 9143 & Yashpal Singh 8700. .. and 4 of them never played for India.
regards – S Sampathkumar
11.11.2024