“There is, I will say, boon and curse in that because we have won the Ranji Trophy 42 times,” Lad tells Cricinfo in the last week of September after his first outdoor batting session in three months. He had dislocated his left shoulder during the T20 Mumbai League final where he captained Maratha Royals to the title. Lad has since taken over as the Mumbai Ranji captain, managed his rehab while keeping tabs on their pre-season camps and tournaments to chart the path ahead. “If we can add something to our legacy this season, I will be very proud as a captain.
“I feel standards are always high when you play for Mumbai and every player knows that. And with that we’ve got that khadoos (stubborn) attitude, not giving up easily on things. That will matter a lot to us. And I feel everyone has played a lot of cricket in Mumbai, so I don’t need to remind them again and again about anything. It’s just about having a good mahaul (atmosphere) in the team and that is what will help us do well in the season.
“It’s a dream that I am living, leading the Mumbai side.”
Lad is an archetypal Mumbai batter – he has spent 13 years in the domestic circuit to produce over 5000 runs and 15 centuries from 82 first-class games. Does all that reduce the pressure on a Mumbai batter or captain in any way? “I don’t think it has reduced over the years,” he says. “I have been used to handling that pressure and now I know how to handle that pressure. Now I have different responsibilities in the team.”
“I think there will be a lot of different challenges when you enter the first-class season,” he says. “Maybe a couple of players will go on national duties or go on to play for India A, one or two might have a niggle or get injured in the season. So there will always be a challenge for us as a captain and a coach to have our back-ups right. We have got great bench strength. It’s just about the experience they lack, otherwise we have got great bench strength.”
“We are finding the right balance in our opening [pair], where we could have done better last season,” Lad says. “But also we have got great potential in Ayush Mhatre. Angkrish [Raghuvanshi] is there, then Divyaansh [Saxena] scored a couple of hundreds in the KSCA [pre-season tournament]. So I think it’s just about coming together, getting a strong bonding amongst each other because it’s a big season.
“It’s a seven-eight month season where you start, then you have a lot of uncertainty I would say because some day you will have ups, some day you will have downs. So how we react when we are down as a team that matters a lot to me as a captain. And for me the only message to my players or my youngsters is, giving more than 100% effort. If you fail, I would still accept it if you fail trying. But for me, giving more than 100% is what I judge my players on.”
“We have really focused on our training parts in the off-season,” Lad says. “Now, the standards we are at, it is a much higher percentage I would say, as a fitness and training team. And also with that we focused more on fielding along with our batting and bowling because we felt that we could have done better in the fielding aspect.”
Lad, however, believes the players are experienced enough to not be prescribed what is expected from them. He says he doesn’t “need to do much” because most of them have been in the domestic circuit for years, some have played for India A, and a few are IPL regulars apart from the internationals. His job as a leader will be more about creating a “bond” in the dressing room, he says.
“I always felt that once you turn 29-30 you get more matured as a batsman, and then I thought I knew my game really well where I can score runs, when to attack, because last season if you see I scored runs at a brisk pace after scoring fifty. So I understood my game, where I want to be because only defending also doesn’t make any sense.”
Siddhesh Lad
“So as a team-mate when you have a long season, it’s about brotherhood, coming together and doing something for the team. Also you need to make sure that your players are in the right space because at this level you don’t need to talk to them much about batting or bowling. They are already experienced in that. What we can do as a captain and support staff is give them the environment where they come with freedom and express themselves. And giving that clarity to all the youngsters that they belong there.”
Lad’s responsibilities will also go beyond the usuals of marshalling his troops on the field, setting the right fields, picking the right bowler at the right time, and so on. His role will also entail a lot of man-management as his deputy – Mhatre – is just 19, already a Chennai Super Kings star and an Under-19 World Cup winning captain. Raghuvanshi, 22, has also been an IPL regular in the Kolkata Knight Riders camp for the last three seasons, and there will always be players in the Mumbai dressing room who have already played for India, a dream Lad is still chasing.
“You will have a personality in yourself and also you will have that ego as an elite athlete,” Lad says of the kind of players that make up the Mumbai team. “And I think that should always be there. But I want to make sure that you have that ego, but make sure that it goes in the right direction, where the team wants it. And I feel I am always good with handling players and gaining trust as a senior player.
“Cricket has changed for sure, so I don’t expect them to come and keep playing like what we expect from them,” Lad said of the youngsters. “Yes, there will be certain goals which they will have as a young player playing IPL and maybe they are very close to playing for the Indian team. But my only message to them will be that any goal they have should align with the goal the team has. Whatever the team needs in that particular situation is what we are expecting the youngsters to do and I am very confident that this season will come good for them.”
Lad had earned his stripes the hard way himself as he has had to earn his respect and reputation twice in the Mumbai dressing room. He had to establish himself again after he moved to Goa for the 2022-23 season, then returned to Mumbai but only became eligible for the 2024-25 season after serving a mandatory cooling-off year. Lad knew he could not merely walk back into the competitive dressing room. When he met Salvi, the head coach, and the MCA president Ajinkya Naik to chart his route back into the Mumbai side, he had to face “tough conversations”.
“So the coach’s opinion was, ‘first you will have to get much fitter because it has been two years’ gap, you have not played any first-class season’.” Lad, however, also found relief in the fact that both Salvi and Naik believed that Mumbai needed a seasoned pro like him as he had proven himself in the Mumbai set-up for years.
“I always felt that once you turn 29-30 you get more matured as a batsman, and then I thought I knew my game really well where I can score runs, when to attack,” Lad says of the last two seasons. “Because last season if you see I scored runs at a brisk pace after scoring fifty. So I understood my game, where I want to be because only defending also doesn’t make any sense. One good ball can get you out at that level. So I knew how to pace the innings really well and Omkar sir helped me a lot with understanding my game.
“And I felt I lost two golden years when I was 30-31 where it should have been the peak of my batting. At 30-31 you get more mature as a batsman but I don’t have any regrets, I tried my best whatever I could and I still have motivation. The only motivation for me right now is to win the Ranji Trophy for Mumbai, that is what I’m working for.”
Lad taking over the reins of Mumbai now coincides with his 10th year for the team. It’s a feat that fills him with pride because of the cut-throat competition in the Mumbai set-up. After all these years, he has learnt to work more on his strengths and not fight with his weaknesses. He says he is doing it all to prove things to himself and “not to anyone else”. If he can manage to bring all this together and get the 43rd for Mumbai, Lad will be remembered as one of those Mumbai captains who did it, whether he makes it to the Indian team or not.
Vishal Dikshit is an assistant editor at Cricinfo