Jammu and Kashmir cricket team on Thursday ended their 2018-19 Ranji Trophy campaign with an innings defeat against Jharkhand, however, produced the best results in the tournament since the 2013-14 season.
The Parvez Rasool-led side started the tournament miserably, losing the first match and conceding first innings lead in the second. Though, they managed to pull back things in the third one while playing at home after a considerable gap. The win over Tripura, however, was followed by another two consecutive defeats, one away and one at home fixture.
Known for its inconsistency, the Group-C contestants made yet another comeback, stunning the star-studded Haryana in their own den. But like previous times, they again disappointed in the next match.
Thereafter, the bowling heavyweights posted the last and overall third win of the tournament against Assam. While lastly, in the ninth round, one of the top teams of Group, Jharkhand crushed them by an innings, finishing the journey of hosts on losing note.
However, despite the uneven reign in tournament, J&K pulled off the best results in Ranji Trophy since 2013-14 edition when they had qualified for quarter-finals. Having likes of Indian all-rounder, Irfan Pathan as mentor-cum-player this season, the Parvez Rasool’s men grabbed 19 points from nine games, which happens to be far better than what they had done in last four editions.
Meanwhile, the JKCA owned team has been one of the underperforming teams of the tournament since the beginning. Barring a couple of seasons, the side has mostly failed to make any impact in the tourney.
In 2013-14 season, under the captaincy of Parvez Rasool, J&K qualified for the knockouts of Ranji Trophy for the second time in 70 years. However, what followed that edition was even worse.
In 2014-15, the team returned home with one win and in 2015-16- none while in 2016-17 and 2017-18, managed to get one victory each.
Pertinently, the just concluded 2018-19 edition was a slight better, however, not satisfying enough for sure.