Vidarbha have been among the most consistent teams in the domestic circuit alongside Mumbai in the last decade. The 2017-18 Ranji Trophy champions had almost got to their third title last season but lost to record champions Mumbai. This season, they made sure they exacted revenge by knocking out the defending champions in the semifinal with a 80-run lead. The Akshay Wadkar-led side have carried on their form from the Vijay Hazare Trophy where they reached the final, without losing a single game in the group stages.
Throughout their campaign, Vidarbha had many heroes who stepped up to dominate the situation. Dhruv Shorey, Karun Nair, Yash Rathod, Harsh Dubey, Nachiket Bhute and skipper Wadkar himself.
Among them is 21-year-old Danish Malewar who has come out on top every time his team was under pressure. In the ongoing final against first-time finalists Kerala, Vidarbha were struggling 11/2 when Malewar walked in for the rescue act. Alongside senior batter Nair, he stitched a 215-run partnership for fourth wicket while also taking his run tally in his debut senior season past 600 runs.
On a grassy Nagpur pitch where Kerala pacers were spitting fire, Malewar had to be patient early on. There were wristy strokes on the on-side and free-flowing drives on the offside when the opportunity presented itself, but it was wearing down the new ball for the first couple of hours. However, the youngster broke the shackles with a massive six to bring up his fifty in 104 balls and his team’s 100 in style. From there onwards, it was authoritative from Malewar who got to the second hundred of his debut First-Class season with a six and a four. As soon as he got to the three-figure mark, he took off his helmet, closed his eyes and plugged his ears a-la-KL Rahul.
It was neither Malewar’s first crucial knock this season nor his first big knock in red-ball cricket. He had walked in at 64/3 in the first innings of the third group game against Uttarakhand and bailed his team out with a gritty 56. While that innings took him 145 balls, Malewar played a totally different knock – 42 off 63 balls with seven fours – in the second innings when Vidarbha had to set a big target.
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In Vidarbha’s only draw of this season, Malewar scored a sparkling 115 and forged a 222-run partnership with Nair as Vidarbha declared at 545/9 to take a first innings lead and keep their undefeated streak intact.
In the quarterfinal against a confident Tamil Nadu side, the 21-year-old took Vidarbha from hobbling at 44/3 to 142/4 by scoring a determined 75 and forging a 98-run partnership with Nair.
Be it spending hours grinding down the opposition or playing at a rapid pace to boost the score rate, walking in at No.3 or batting in the lower-middle order, Malewar’s versatility was evident from his break-out season in 2022. He was light years ahead of everyone in the U19 Cooch Behar Trophy, India’s top four-day tournament at youth level, with a massive 1,171 runs from just 12 innings as Vidarbha clinched their second Cooch Behar Trophy in four years.
The season also included scores of 92, 59 not out, 24, 199, 1, 20, 72, 110, 4, 26 and 262. But the highlight of that season was a sensational 300 not out against Bihar that made him only the third triple centurion in the tournament after Yuvraj Singh in 1999-2000 season and fellow Vidarbha batter Atharva Taide in 2017-18 season.
Malewar is yet to make his white-ball debut for Vidarbha’s senior team, but he has already made a statement with his mature batting to bring them closer to the title. His KL Rahul-esque celebration might be a part of that statement as he aims to lift the country’s most-coveted silverware.
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