I received a lot of attention and praises after the triple ton: Swapnil Gugale

Swapnil Gugale had a lot to cheer from the moment he was asked to lead his Ranji side Maharashtra. He made the first game a memorable one by scoring an unbeaten 358 and sharing a record stand of 594 with Ankeet Bawane, 31 runs short of breaking the highest ever stand in first-class cricket as Swapnil declared the inning while still batting.

He later said that he might have not declared if they were aware of being that close to the record. What would he do if he is in a similar situation in the future, Gugale said: “Firstly, whatever my team requires is more important than records. Actually, we weren’t aware that we were nearing any record. So if I already had known about it, we would have just tried to get that score. But it’s okay. It’s part and parcel of the game. My team wanted certain total and we got more than enough.”

Talking about his Maharashtra teammate Kedar Jadhav’s surprising exploits with the ball during the ongoing India – New Zealand series, he smiled and said: “Obviously, it was surprising and a happy thing to see a player from Maharashtra doing it. I think he is the only player in Maharashtra who could bat, bowl and keep wickets. He is doing very good for India. Happy moment for us.”

In fact, Jadhav is Maharashtra’s captain for the Ranji Trophy in his absence, Gugale took up the role for the first time and earned a deserving attention following his sensational knock. “Suddenly the things changed after the triple century. Lots of attention and I was in newspapers, news and all the people were praising me for the knock. It’s a very good feeling and I hope to continue it,” said the 25-year old left-hander.

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Swapnil is currently leading his side against Team Rajasthan at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium, Hyderabad. His side posted a total of 461 after he won the toss and elected to bat. At the end of day 2, Swapnil spoke to CricTracker about the game: “The track seems to be very good actually. On the third day, it won’t be easy to score 400 odd runs when you know you are 75/2. So overall it was a good total. I think we have a kind of bowling to defend the total on this kind of wicket where the ball is moving a bit with good bounce.“

Maharashtra’s bowling has been a concern for them as huge totals were recorded against them in previous two games. However, their captain was hopeful about his bowlers taking 8 wickets before the Team Rajasthan clear the 386-run deficit on day 3. “We made one change for this game bringing Samad Fallah. On the given day we couldn’t bowl well in the previous game. This match we might do well. Tomorrow is a new day. Today we bowled really well in the 30 overs. So we are hoping we get few early wickets tomorrow so that the game will be open for us.”