In Jaggi’s sparkle, East Zone are crowned T20 champs

YOU HAVE often been spoken of among the brightest batting talents in the country. You’ve been on the periphery of national reckoning for a few years now without really slamming the door down. You’ve had a decent domestic season, and are just coming off two aggressive half-centuries, which have been in match-winning causes. And your name is nowhere to be found among the 300-odd players who will go under the hammer in IPL auction on February 20.

So it wasn’t surprising to find Ishank Jaggi downbeat a few days earlier. It’s not so much about the possibility of missing out on the glitzy IPL bandwagon as it is about beginning to doubt your own standing in terms of the Indian cricket scenario. It was a different and a more confident Jaggi who turned up at the Wankhede Stadium on Saturday however. Order had been restored in a way the previous evening. Jaggi was now among the hundreds of cricketers who will sit with fingers crossed in front of their TV sets on Monday.

And it showed in the way he and another Jharkhand batsman Virat Singh led East Zone to the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy with a partnership that could go a long way towards enriching their IPL futures go in two days’ time. The target wasn’t a big one with West setting them a mere 150 for victory. Jaggi came up with powerful 56 from 30 balls which had six sixes and three fours, with 48 of those coming in boundaries. Singh, meanwhile, remained unbeaten 58 off 34 balls.

It was Jaggi who held centre-stage during their partnership though. He started off by hooking Ishwar Chaudhary for six before taking on every other bowler who came up against him. Tall, elegant and with a nicely balanced stance even if his legs can be slightly wider apart than normal, Jaggi isn’t someone you would generally associate with anything overly aggressive. But he later revealed his ability to dominate the bowlers could be credited to the incessant videos of AB de Villiers that he’s been watching and learning from of late.

“There is a thing that I realised after watching AB de Villiers, who I am a big fan of, that to watch the ball is very important while batting. So before every ball I tell myself ‘watch the ball.’ When I was a youngster I too have made the mistake that if I have faced two dot balls I have got out playing some unnecessary shot. And so when I am inside now I talk to the other batsman," he says.

Another aspect of his batting in the shortest format that has come a long way is his ability to read the game and take it on at the right junctures. It’s also about targeting the right bowlers at the right time.

“I tell the other batsman that I will hit this bowler and you don’t or vice a versa. And I tell myself the same as well. Sometimes even then mistakes happen but I have learned from experience and am in more control,” he says, describing what is if anything another very typical de Villiers trait.

Jaggi also showed the ability to hit massive sixes, preferring to give himself room and go inside-out against the seamers while targeting the mid-on and deep midwicket fences against the spinners. He slammed young Prerak Mankad over long on and struck two sixes off Rujul Bhatt and later got one six and four from Shardul Thakur. Singh was equally aggressive and hit three sixes too to score his second straight half-century. And now they can sit back and see where their stocks stand in IPL proportions on Monday.

In the other match, Harpreet Singh led Central Zone to a facile win over South with a 51-ball 92 to round off what has been a terrific tournament for the left-hander.

West Zone 149 for 5 (Sheldon Jackson 52, Rujul Bhatt 36 n.o.) lost to East Zone (Virat Singh 58 n.o., Ishank Jaggi 56) by 8 wickets; South Zone 181 for 7 (Vijay Shankar 40, Dinesh Karthik 35, Pranav Deshpande 33 n.o., Vishnu Vinod 31) lost to Central Zone 184 for 8 (Harpreet Singh 92, Amandeep Khare 39) by two wickets.

BRIEF SCORES:

Kevin D’souza Ishank Jaggi continued his rich vein of form.