Long ago, Australia once selected ‘Peter Taylor’ – and there were Qs – ‘Taylor-who ?’ – as Mark Taylor was expected to be selected and Peter was virtually unknown !! Tanush Kotian ~ is the name all are searching now !!
In Indian Side there have been famed leg-spinners, left arm spinners and .. a long list of Off-spinners. The following is the list I could remember – do add, if I had missed out some !
Ghulam Ahmed, Jasu Ptel, Erapalli Prasanna, Srinivasan Venkatraghavan, Shivlal Yadav, Kirti Azad, Arshad Ayud, M Venkatramana, Rajesh Chauhan, Gopal Sharma, Ashish Kapoor, Ashok Patel, Sarandeep Singh, Harbhajan Singh, Ravichandran Ashwin, Ramesh Power, Jayant Yadav, Washington Sundar .. .. .....
In Mar 2024, it was heart burn for TN fans as their team was pushed out of the Ranji tournament once again. After conceding a first-innings lead of 232, Tamil Nadu collapsed to lose inside three days. Mumbai made it to their 48th Ranji Trophy final after thrashing Tamil Nadu by an innings and 70 runs on the third day of their semi-final at the Bandra Kurla Complex.
Today comes the news that - Tanush Karunakar Kotian, the Mumbai offspin-bowling allrounder, has been picked as R Ashwin's replacement in India's squad for the fourth and fifth Border-Gavaskar Trophy Tests. His selection was confirmed by the Mumbai Cricket Association on Monday evening. Kotian is expected to fly to Melbourne tomorrow. He is currently in Hyderabad as part of the Mumbai squad for the Vijay Hazare Trophy.
Kotian, 26, has played 33 first-class games and taken 101 wickets at an average of 25.70. He has also scored 1525 runs in 47 innings, at 41.21 with two centuries and 13 fifties. He was part of India A's tour of Australia that preceded the Border-Gavaskar Trophy - he played one match, scoring 44 runs and taking one wicket. He played a massive part in Mumbai's victorious 2023-24 Ranji Trophy campaign, scoring 502 runs at an average of 41.83 and picking up 29 wickets at an average of 16.96, which earned him the Player-of-the-Tournament award. Kotian was the only player to complete the season double of 500 runs and 25 wickets.
In that TN/Mumbai encounter, resuming the day on 353 for 9, Mumbai ended their first innings at 378, with a healthy lead of 232. Tanush Kotian, who was unbeaten on 74 overnight, stretched the last-wicket partnership with Tushar Deshpande to 88. At one point, it looked like Kotian, No. 10, would complete his second hundred in as many matches. But Washington Sundar dismissed Deshpande to leave him stranded on 89.
In feb 2024, Tushar Deshpande and Tanush Kotian sent records tumbling as they become the first no.10 and no.11 pairing in the history of the Ranji Trophy, and just the second in recorded history of first class cricket, to hit individual centuries in the same innings. Deshpande and Kotian, who were the last two batters in the Mumbai lineup against Baroda in the quarter-final of the Ranji Trophy, ended up scoring a whopping 232 runs for the last wicket with both batters scoring individual centuries. The partnership ended when Deshpande was dismissed on 123 off 129 balls. Kotian at the other end finished unbeaten on 120 off 129 balls. The score 337/9 when the pair came together and Mumbai ended up piling 569 runs at the end of the partnership.
While he could reach Australia in time, whether he would be selected and play remains a big Q ! - Cricket pundits suggested that – if it would be a spinning track at Sydney – India may play two which spinners, which could well be ‘Ravindra Jadeja & Washington Sundar’ – and there were some reports that such a report was communicated to Ashwin too !!
Wishing all the best for Mumbaikar Tanush Kotian
Regards – S. Sampathkumar
23.12.2024
Pic courtesy : ESPN Cricinfo.
