Quiz: How well did you follow Ranji Trophy 2022?

The 87th season of the Ranji Trophy, India’s premier First-Class cricket tournament, is done and dusted, and Madhya Pradesh (MP) lifted their maiden title. They defeated the most successful side in the competition’s history, Mumbai, by six wickets in the final clash. Shubham Sharma, who scored 116 and 30 runs in the first and second innings respectively, was named the Player of the Match in the summit encounter. Rajat Patidar and Yash Dubey also smashed centuries in the match to deny Mumbai their 42nd title.

Sarfaraz Khan took the entire tournament by storm yet again as his spectacular form in domestic cricket continued. The 24-year-old right-handed batter hammered 982 runs in just nine innings at a mind-boggling average of 122.75 with the highest score of 275. Patidar, who scored 333 runs for Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in the Indian Premier League (IPL) this year, ended the Ranji Trophy season as the second-highest run-getter behind Sarfaraz with 658 runs.

Madhya Pradesh’s coach Chandrakant Pandit won his record sixth trophy as a coach in India’s first-class cricket championship. Shams Mulani, Mumbai’s slow left-arm orthodox bowler, took over 40 wickets as he ended up the season as the highest wicket-taker. MP’s spinner Kumar Kartikeya took the second-most wickets (32) in this edition as he played a vital role in winning the first-ever title for his side. Pacer Gaurav Yadav took the second-most scalps (23) for MP in their victorious campaign.

 Sarfaraz Khan becomes the first player to smash 900-plus runs in successive seasons

Meanwhile, prolific Mumbai batter Sarfaraz Khan has been scoring runs for fun in the Ranji Trophy. He became the first batter to breach the 900-plus runs mark in consecutive editions. In the 2019/20 campaign, he slammed 928 runs in nine innings at an average of 154.66 with three centuries and two half-centuries with the highest score of 301*. The other two batters who struck 900-plus runs on two different occasions are Ajay Sharma and Wasim Jaffer. The former hammered 933 runs in 1991/92 and 1045 in 1996/97 seasons. Jaffer racked up 1260 runs in the 2008/09 edition and 1037 in 2018/19.

Speaking more of Sarfaraz’s heroics, he now has the second-best average (81.61), only behind Don Bradman (95.14), among batters with a minimum of 2000 runs in first-class cricket. The youngster has so far amassed 2530 runs in 37 innings with eight centuries and seven half-centuries. If it was Saurashtra who won their maiden Ranji Trophy title in the 2019/20 season, then it was now time for Madhya Pradesh to create their own history by sealing a memorable victory over the 41-time champions Mumbai.

Meanwhile, let’s test your knowledge in this quiz based on Ranji Trophy 2021/22-2022 season: