Saxena revels in one-day format

Mumbai's first game in the West Zone Ranji one-day league in the 1999-2000 Ranji season was against Maharashtra at the Wankhede Stadium. Mumbai captain Amol Muzumdar won the toss and inserted their opponents in to bat on a November morning. The match was coinciding with the New Zealand tour of India so that several key figures in the Mumbai ranks were missing.

The pace attack was manned by the threesome of Paras Mhambrey, Santosh Saxena and Amit Dani. Saxena was the first to strike, removing opener AJ Dalvi for four with his fourth delivery. Mhambrey had scant success with six overs going for 26 while Dani bowled a tidy spell of 1/28 from his quota of ten overs. However it was left arm spinner Nilesh Kulkarni who put the skids on the Maharashtra middle order with three wickets.

Maharashtra's most accomplished batsman, Shantanu Sugwekar, was playing a sole hand all this while, with a fighting 70 (103 balls, five fours). But Saxena came back at the death to finish off Maharashtra's resistance in his tenth and last over with two wickets in two balls.

First Sugwekar directed him into the hands of Manoj Joglekar, as indeed had Dalvi earlier in the innings, and then Saxena messed up the wickets of the hapless Mandar Sane. He ended with the figures of 3/37 from his 10 overs as Maharashtra could post only a feeble 182/9. Mumbai hit up the required runs for the loss of just three wickets with more than six overs to spare.

Mumbai proceeded to lift the West Zone Ranji one-day league title, winning three of their four matches, the triumph also giving them an automatic berth in the 2000-2001 Wills Trophy. Santosh Saxena was one of the pillars around which that triumph was constructed. In four matches he grabbed 8 wickets at 16.75 with a strike rate of 25.5.