Ranji Trophy: Dhaval's dream debut

Mumbai: Nineteen-year-old Dhaval Kulkarni is a man of few words who prefers speaking through his performances. The shy lad made a memorable Ranji Trophy debut by scalping five wickets for Mumbai in the Super League's group A match against Rajasthan at the Brabourne Stadium on Tuesday.

He became the seventh bowler to do so in the history of Mumbai cricket and he was pleased with his performance. "Very good" was how Dhaval summed up his days performance.

For the extraordinary performance in the very first match of his career, Dhaval was honoured by the team management at the end of the day's play.

The Rizvi College student stuck to his basics and created seam movements that fetched him the wickets of Subhanshu Vijay (4), Nikhil Doru (0), Gagan Khoda (22), Pankaj Singh and the days successful batsman Vineet Saxena (76). On the other end Ramesh Powar cleaned up half of the batting line up giving Mumbai their second five-wicket haul of the day.

Dhaval, who played for Mumbai Indians in the Indian Premier League, said it was completely unexpected for him. "I never thought about this. My only aim was to bowl according to the plan of the team and never expected that it would turn out to be successful," Dhaval said.

The Mumbai-born seamer said his stint at the Centre of Excellence in Brisbane was a learning experience. "Earlier I used to just run and bowl and even the pace was less. But Mumbai Cricket Association sent me to Brisbane for a camp and once I came back I was a changed bowler. My technique was right I developed more strength and my pace was increased," he added.

Source: sports.indiainfo.com