Madhya Pradesh is bringing home the maiden Ranji trophy, for the first time, in 88 years of Ranji history. The team could not have achieved this feat had it not been for small-town boys of Madhya Pradesh. There are many players in this winning team who hail from small towns of districts like Chhatarpur, Ujjain, Shahdol, where there are not even proper facilities of cricket coaching. Ujjain’s Parth Sahani, is son of banker Mukesh Sahani. Father Mukesh has also been a cricketer. Parth is captain of Ujjain division cricket senior team and under his captaincy two months ago, the team of Ujjain division became the State winner by defeating Gwalior.

Parth made his Twenty20 debut in March 2015 against Railways team. He also made his List-A debut in December the same year against Saurashtra team. Parth played Ranji Trophy match for first time with Madhya Pradesh team. Two players of Shahdol shone in Ranji Trophy competition by giving brilliant performances. In semi-final match, when Madhya Pradesh’s team defeated West Bengal by 174 runs, to make it to the final after 23 years, Himanshu Mantri of Shahdol won Man of the Match title.

In the same match, Shahdol’s slow left-arm orthodox Kumar Kartikeya had bowled brilliantly and obtained 32 wickets in the tournament. Himanshu Mantri had scored 165 runs and also contributed 37 runs in the second innings against Mumbai. In the match against Mumbai, Kumar Karthikeya was on fire. He clinched 4 wickets in second innings of Mumbai. He also took 8 wickets in semi-final match. He bowled superbly this season.