Shamik Chakrabarty, Mumbai
Siddhesh Lad is 33 years old, an age when professional athletes start thinking about post-retirement. Youth is a fashionable word in sport, which steeply increases the degree of difficulty for the OTs (over thirty). But what about someone who is having a second wind to the extent of scoring five first-class hundreds so far in a season — four on the spin. On the face of it, it feels like international cricket has passed Lad by. His exploits on the field, though, should make the selectors sit up and take note.
Five centuries in a season, and the Ranji Trophy knockouts are still to be played, have been an incredible achievement. Mumbai is regarded as the holy of holies of Indian batting. But even there, only two players before Lad had achieved the feat — Rusi Modi in 1944-45 and Sachin Tendulkar in 1994-95. The stand-in Mumbai captain remained unbeaten on 102 off 178 balls on the second day of his team’s Ranji Trophy match against Delhi at the BKC-MCA ground on Friday to be in august company. And by his own admission, he has been batting at his best in his career.
“I think so, because now I feel I know my game,” said Lad after the day’s play. “(Now I know) when to score runs, what to do. The maturity that a batsman gets after 30, I am experiencing that now. How to score runs, when to score runs, in which situation to score runs.”
Earlier, he had the issue of converting his half-centuries into hundreds. Over the last two seasons, after returning to his home patch (Ranji team), a different Lad has emerged, someone with an insatiable hunger for runs. “Before, I used to do 50s and 70s,” said the senior batsman. “If you see my half centuries, I have around 30 in first-class cricket. But I struggled to convert. Now I am playing with a different maturity.’
A settled batting position at No. 4 has helped, but a few seasons ago, things were not rosy for the man whose father, Dinesh, mentored two superstar Indian cricketers — Rohit Sharma and Shardul Thakur. As cricket resumed after Covid, Lad was dropped from the Mumbai team and shifted base to Goa. He returned to Mumbai last season and has become the team’s “crisis man” since.
“The MCA showed faith in me,” Lad gave his vote of thanks. “I will say that the MCA president (Ajinkya Naik), who supported me when I came back to Mumbai at the age of 32. Very few players have come back after migrating to other states. So, the way he welcomed me, and showed faith in me, it doubled my motivation. If they are showing such faith, I have to do something for Mumbai.”
Karun Nair was brought back to the Indian Test team last year at the age of 34. A mountain of runs that he scored in domestic cricket forced the selectors’ hand. If Lad’s purple patch continues in the Ranji Trophy knockouts, then who knows? The player, though, is not looking too far.
Brief scores: Delhi 221 vs Mumbai 266/5 in 84 overs (Musheer Khan 57, Siddhesh Lad 102 batting, Suved Parkar 53 batting; Divij Mehra 2/38)
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