Parkar hits ton on debut for Mumbai
MUMBAI: Suved Parkar made a dream debut for Mumbai, scoring a superb unbeaten century to help his team make a strong start against Uttarakhand in their Ranji Trophy quarter-final tie, in Alur on Monday.
The 21-year-old batter has scored heavily in local tournaments and for the Mumbai U-25 team this year. He carried that streak to help Mumbai post 304 for three on Day One of the knockout round.
Parkar was batting on 104 at stumps. He came in to bat when Mumbai were struggling at 64 for two and stitched two 100plus stands—112 for the third wicket with Armaan Jaffer (60) before forging an unfinished 128-run alliance for the fourth wicket with Sarfaraz Khan (69*). Parkar has played 218 balls and hit eight fours and two sixes in his impressive knock.
“It was a very proud feeling when I got to my century. I always dreamt of playing for Mumbai but I never imagined that I would score a century on debut. I didn’t try to do anything different and decided to play to my strengths,” said Parkar. The last Mumbai batter to score a century on debut was his current skipper Prithvi Shaw, who achieved the mark in 2017.
Parkar thus becomes another addition to the long list of players who have been groomed by Dinesh Lad at Swami Vivekanand International School, Gorai. Rohit Sharma, Shardul Thakur, Siddhesh Lad and Harmeet Singh are some others to have trained under Lad.
“The way he has performed in the last one year, I was expecting him to get a chance. He had told me that, “if he gets a chance, he will do well”. He has kept his word. It was nice of the team management to show confidence in him and send him at No.4. He has grabbed that opportunity with both hands,” said Lad.
Parkar was excluded from the Mumbai team for the U-25 One-day Tournament but instead of sulking, he channelised his energy towards preparing for the red ball season. The hard work has paid off.
Before his century on Monday, he had scored six centuries across various tournaments this year. Two centuries came for Mumbai team in the U-25 Col CK Nayudu Trophy which they won. He was Mumbai’s top-scorer in the tournament with 601 runs in six matches at an average of 52.67. He hit three centuries in Times Shield ‘A’ Division while playing for Jain Irrigation and scored a century in the Shalini Bhalekar Trophy U-25 selection tournament.
“He wasn’t getting runs before Times Shield, he went back to basics. He batted for long hours and it helped him when the red ball season started,” said Lad.
It was a proud moment for his parents—vijay and Madhavi—who always wanted that someone in the family become a sportsperson. Suved’s mother is a national level kho-kho player while maternal uncle Sunil More has represented Mumbai in Ranji Trophy. “He always did well while playing cricket. He first trained at Mandapeshwar Civic Federation under Nagesh Thakur, who used to make him play U-19 matches when he was 11-12 years old. He then moved to SVIS and trained under Lad sir, who worked hard on him,” said Vijay.
“The day I looked at him, I told his parents that don’t keep him away from cricket. Luckily, they listened to me and their decision has been vindicated. He has habit of playing big knocks and has scored a triple ton in Harris Shield,” said Lad. Brief scores: Mumbai 304/3 (Suved Parkar 104*, Sarfaraz Khan 69*, Armaan Jaffer 60, Yashasvi Jaiswal 35; Deepak Dhapola 3/53) vs
213/7 (R Samarth 57; Saurabh Kumar 4/67) vs
310/1 (Sudip Gharami 106*, Anustup Majumdar 85*) vs 219 (A
5/0
Agarwal 3/36) vs