Before Monday, Tushar Deshpande had multiple hat-tricks to his name. One of them had come in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy against Mizoram in 2023, another in the MCA Under-16 selection tournament some years back, and quite a few in school cricket – for the KC Gandhi School in Kalyan, a subdivision of Thane district near Mumbai. So, when he found himself in a three-in-three situation on Day Two of Mumbai’s Ranji Trophy match against Chandigarh at the Wankhede, experience came in handy.
More than experience, though, Deshpande had the advice of a few experts to bank on — Dwayne Bravo at Chennai Super Kings and Shane Bond at Rajasthan Royals. There was also Eric Simons, the South African who was roped in by the England Test side on Monday. A bowling coach at CSK until last year, Simons had advised Deshpande to always target the top of off stump.
“Bowl your best ball on top of off (stump) whenever in doubt,” Deshpande recalled the advice. He did exactly that, delivering a ripsnorter to Dipender Kush, who was facing the hat-trick ball. All that the Chandigarh No. 5 could manage was an edge to the slips, leaving the Mumbai players in instant elation.
“If you see, it was a top-of-off-stump ball. The plan was just to bowl my best ball, and (Yashasvi) Jaiswal took a good catch,” Deshpande (31) said of the hat-trick. It was his fourth wicket of the day, and he went on to claim two more — one in Chandigarh’s first innings to complete a five-wicket haul and another in the first over of the second innings, wreaking havoc in the opposition camp.
With a 351-run lead and one second innings wicket in the bag, Mumbai are on course for a massive win, thanks largely to Deshpande. His figures of six for 17 on the day, coupled with a facile 44 batting at No. 9, have left the visitors on the ropes. With the greenish strip assisting the bowlers, Deshpande could be unstoppable on Day 3, as he was in his eight overs on Day 2.
“It was one of my best (performances) because every ball, it felt like you would take a wicket,” Deshpande said. He had a similarly impactful outing for India A against Australia A in Puducherry recently. In the second match, his defiant 52 as nightwatchman in India A’s second innings helped the side avert defeat and clinch the series. India A had won the first match on the back of his five-wicket match haul.
Deshpande had hoped to be picked for the India A team touring New Zealand. It was not to be. He brooded over the disappointment for a day before taking the setback on his stride. “There is always motivation to play Test cricket for India, no matter whether I am selected for the A-team shadow tour or not. I thought about it for a day, but I have always said that I want to chase performance, not selection,” he said.
It was also his 50th first-class game and he wants to make it special for himself and the team. “It’s my 50th first-class match today, so I had it in my mind that I wanted to make it special. But it wasn’t as if I was thinking about a hat-trick or anything like that. I was just going to give my 100% today. When I was batting, there were some patches on the wicket where the ball seemed to move a bit.
“My only focus was to bowl as many balls as possible in the right areas, and it paid dividends today. I would say that if we can put on another show like we did in the first innings and maintain the intensity whenever I bowl, I’ll be even happier. We have just enforced the follow-on, but we have to come back tomorrow, bowl in the right areas and finish the job as early as possible.”
Coached by his father Uday, who was an A Division player in Mumbai cricket, Deshpande has been one of the key performers for Mumbai – 126 wickets in 42 games at an average of about 26. He has a century and a half-century in 666 runs he has scored for Mumbai.
On Monday, he became the sixth Mumbai bowler to claim a hat-trick in the Ranji Trophy (Jehangir Khot vs Baroda in 1943–44, Umesh Kulkarni vs Gujarat in 1963–64, Abdul Ismail vs Saurashtra in 1973–74, Royston Dias vs Bihar in 2023–24 and Shardul Thakur vs Meghalaya in 2024-25 are the other five), leaving the opposition reeling. A big win with a bonus point for Mumbai is on the cards. But experience has taught him not to take the opposition lightly.
“Looking at the scorecard, you always feel that the opposition wasn’t good enough. But, to be honest, you cannot take any opponent lightly in today’s cricket. In the past, we have lost to weaker teams. So, as Mumbai cricketers, our job is to collect as many points as possible,” he cautioned his teammates.
