"Bhai, mein all-rounder nahi hoon. Mein sirf ek bowler hoon (I'm not an all-rounder, I'm just a bowler)," Tushar Deshpande corrected me after I had wrongly labelled him as an all-rounder in my write-up following his four-wicket haul on debut, on the opening day of the ongoing Ranji Trophy season.
Mumbai's Tushar Deshpande hits the right notes
But it took only two more games for him to contest seriously for that title.
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Fast forward to Round 3 - When Mumbai resumed their innings on the final day, they were still 155 runs behind Madhya Pradesh's first innings score of 445. Akhil Herwadkar was unbeaten on 136, and had the company of Deshpande, who had walked in as a nightwatchman, to shield Siddhesh Lad.
There was no specific brief given to the 21-year old as the team management wasn't too worried about his dismissal. They wanted him to play his natural game, which does not have too much room for defense. Whatever runs would come off his bat or pads would only ease the pressure on Lad and Abhishek Nayar, the only two players with batting credentials to follow. The focus till then was on Herwadkar, the left-handed opener, who had batted through the third day and the one more likely to cause worries to the opposition.
However, it took little time for Deshpande to steal the limelight and put Madhya Pradesh's plans off with his aggressive strokeplay. The southpaw hit some clean blows and quickly started bringing down the deficit.
For a brief period after Herwadkar's dismissal, he looked tentative while playing good length deliveries outside the offstump off Ishwar Pandey. But after a couple of hits and misses, he withdrew towards square leg and shadow batted his strokes with conviction.
The result? He followed up a powerful six straight down the ground with a crisp cover drive for a boundary, the kind of strokes that would've made any top order batsman proud.
By the time he departed, teased by Ankit Sharma's flight and stumped by Ankit Dane, Mumbai needed only 78 runs to take the lead. Of the 78 runs scored till then on the fifth morning, 54 had come off Deshpande's bat. His batting had changed the complexion of the game and gave momentum to Mumbai's innings in their pursuit of chasing Madhya Pradesh's first innings total.
Unfortunately, there was no telecast of the match, and the spectator turnout, to put mildly, was disappointing. And if the scorecard is anything to go by, he was the ninth highest run-getter in the match and the fifth highest in Mumbai's innings. You had to be there to know the impact of his knock in context of the final result. As it turned out, his 84-ball 62, proved to be the most influential innings after Akhil Herwadkar's 153, in deciding the outcome.
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The pacer may have made his debut for Mumbai in their season opener against Tamil Nadu, courtesy a 11th-hour call-up of Shardul Thakur to India's Test side. He also got his second and third game only because Dhawal Kulkarni was included in India's One-Day International team. However, in three games for Mumbai, he has put up credible performances to ensure the team management will have serious headache in finalising the team for their next match against Railways, by when Kulkarni is expected to return to the side.
For the last few years, Kulkarni and Thakur have been the backbone of Mumbai's bowling. Balwinder Sandhu has played the ideal third foil, and been a game-changer in swinging conditions. Even against Madhya Pradesh in Raipur, it was Sandhu who broke the opposition's flow with two crucial breakthroughs of Rajat Patidar and Devendra Bundela. More importantly, his game with the bat has evolved big time and helped Mumbai win the game against Tamil Nadu and gain a slender lead against Baroda.
But, with three strong bowlers, all capable with the bat, would there have been place for Deshpande to fit in?
Deshpande is a bowler who can run in all day and bowl at a good pace and a nagging line and length, picked up from his stint at the MRF Pace Foundation under the guidance of Glenn McGrath. He is the kind of bowler that gets those tags of 'bowling your heart out' out.
Lauding his attitude, Aditya Tare, Mumbai skipper, said, "He has a great attitude towards the game. That pleases me the most. We are not looking at talent, we are looking for players with great attitude and character."
The only worry with his bowling is his habit of overstepping. Even as Chandrakant Pandit, Mumbai's head coach, has said that the pacer has cut down on the number of no-balls tremendously over the last few weeks, he still overstepped eight times in the match against Madhya Pradesh. Two of his no-balls cost him and the team the wickets of the two openers. He came back well and got three scalps, but could've had a fifer had he not overstepped as many times.
Tare admitted that the issue of overstepping is a problem for the side, but was sure that pacer will work on it and improve quickly. "That's something he has to work on. Obviously, no one is perfect. It's something that has been affecting us. He has bowled quite a few no-balls, also got wickets off two. Now that we have a break of 10-12 days, I hope he sorts that out, and I'm sure he will," he concluded.
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