When Prasad Pawar made it to the final eleven for Mumbai in its crucial Ranji Trophy Elite Group B fixture against Maharashtra, he did not know that he would have to bat at No.3.
In the last two games that he featured in, Pawar had batted at No.6. But on Wednesday, Pawar was informed by Mumbai coach Amol Muzumdar he will have to bat at No.3 as Armaan Jaffer suffered a minor injury.
While it was a new challenge for Pawar, he grabbed the opportunity and ended up scoring 145, helping Mumbai to level Maharashtra’s first innings total of 384. Though he missed out on a 150 by just five runs, Pawar was happy to step up and deliver at a time when wickets tumbled at the other end.
“When Armaan got injured, (Amol) sir told me, “You are in at three.” I took it in a positive way, I thought this is an opportunity, otherwise I would have batted at No.6. But I took it as a positive that this would give me a good opportunity to score. This is just my third match but I thought that I would take it in a positive way and the wicket was also very good for batting,” Pawar said on Thursday. “At first, I was going to take my time and play ball by ball. The wicket kept falling, but my plan was to play every ball and realize that I had to get 380 points for the wicket. It was a no-brainer, and it worked for me,” he said.
A stamper batter who plays for Payyade Sports Club, he usually hits third in his league matches locally, and that experience has helped him deal with the pressure.
“That was my first First Class 100. It was an incredible feeling. It would have been great if we could have scored an additional point in the first inning to take the lead. It was a good inning for me personally, but I took my time in the beginning and had to take time again in the middle.” “Wicketts went down, so it was my responsibility to get the team through. But overall it was a good innings…”
With the top order failing early on, Pawar kept telling himself he had to play one ball at a time. “I wasn’t thinking about playing long innings or a set number of pitches. The idea was to play each ball for its value…”
He finished his second day undefeated with his 99 and admitted he hadn’t slept well under pressure. “Honestly, I didn’t get much sleep. I didn’t know I was playing 99 yesterday. I was in the zone where I could earn 100 years if I continued playing like this…”
Pawar, from Kandivali in the western suburbs of Mumbai, is a Poinser Hitendra gymkhana He started playing cricket under Jadav’s watch then Rohit Sharma and Shardul Thakur’s alma mater Swami transferred to an international school. “At school Dinesh Rudd was my coach.I also play at Payyade Club where Lord Gaitonde took me.So I have a lot of coaches.Usually at club level 3 ~ I’ve hit four shots, and I thought the chance I got now was a great chance to go big, so I played accordingly…”