It was a team that has spent decades on the margins of Indian domestic cricket, but on Saturday, as captain Paras Dogra declared the innings at 2:10pm, Jammu & Kashmir were no longer the underdogs. They defeated eight-time winners Karnataka with a first innings lead. They were champions, history-makers, first of their names.
For the first time since their Ranji journey began in 1959, the union territory has a title win to call its own. A moment carved out of resilience and an unshakeable belief that they belonged, despite infrastructural and systematic deficits.
The bigwigs of the administration and the political were all there at Hubballi – witnessing men from the Valleys and the plains etch a moment for a lifetime.
Having dominated the match on each of its five days, Qamran Iqbal and Sahil Lotra laced the occasion with a memorable unbeaten 197–run stand. Iqbal, batting at 94 overnight, registered a magnificent Ranji final century – his second first class hundred – in the 72nd over. Iqbal was dropped but on a day’s notice after the injury to senior batter and opener Shubham Khajuria, the Srinagar batter turned up straight to the ground after his flight. He finished with an unbeaten 160, making his contribution sweeter.
As J&K looked to declare, they buried Karnataka with a massive 584-run lead, but not without Sahil Lotra also bringing up his century. Lotra was replacing the injured Vanshaj Sharma but the all-rounder turned up and how – an unbeaten century in the second innings, 72 in the first and bowling figures of 1/50 in the first innings.
It ended up being a wicketless day for Karnataka – who unfortunately saw the writing on the wall on the penultimate day itself – were thoroughly outbatted and outbowled.
“Today, there was a wave in the country that wanted to see J&K win,” coach Ajay Sharma told the broadcaster. “Even last year the momentum was great, we were winning outright. But missing out by 1 run against Kerala in the quarter-final last year was a great reminder of small margins. We thought that loss would haunt us for long but it didn’t.”
Auqib Nabi finished as the leading wicket-taker with 60 wickets and a five-wicket haul in the first innings. Abdul Samad finished as the team’s leading run scorer with 749 runs in the season.
