By the barest of margins - how Kerala made their first Ranji Trophy final

"Come on, Basil. Be our Jason Gillespie."

Kerala head coach Amay Khurasiya was getting behind his No. 11 at the start of the third day's play in the Ranji Trophy quarter-final against Jammu & Kashmir in Pune. Kerala were trailing by 80 in the first innings with their last-wicket pair of Salman Nizar and Basil Thampi at the crease. Conceding a lead would have meant being knocked out.

At the team meeting the previous night, Khurasiya, in his first season as Kerala head coach, showed his players a motivational video. It featured Gillespie's tenth-wicket partnership of 114 with Glenn McGrath in the Brisbane Test against New Zealand in 2004, which contributed significantly to Australia's innings victory.

As they watched the video, captain Sachin Baby chuckled to himself. The possibility of taking a lead, with Kerala 200 for 9 in response to J&K's 280, hadn't even occurred to him.

"I had told Salman (49 not out overnight), 'give us 30-40 runs and narrow down their lead'. And if we bowl well, we'll see what can happen," Baby said. "But that meeting changed it. After that, we only spoke of trying to fight, survive, work for each run, never give up."

Two hours into the day, Nizar and Thampi had put on 81 for the last wicket and Kerala had the lead. The partnership ended immediately afterwards, but the one-run lead would secure their place in the Ranji Trophy semi-final for only the second time. Nizar was unbeaten on 112. Thampi had contributed 15 off 35 balls.

"Coach, I did it," Thampi told Khurasiya on his triumphant return to the dressing room.

Baby had that thought "a million times".

He had just dropped a sitter on the fifth morning of Kerala's Ranji Trophy semi-final against Gujarat, who had begun the day needing 28 runs with three wickets in hand to take the first-innings lead.

There was no hope of an outright result. Kerala's score of 457 in 187 overs in nearly seven sessions had seen to that. The team that took the first-innings lead was going to the final.

When Jaymeet Patel, a gritty batter who was Gujarat's best hope, chipped Aditya Sarwate to extra cover five overs into the day, Kerala had a chance that Baby put down.

"I began to wonder if things weren't meant to be," he said. "I was like, 'it has taken me 99 first-class games to dream of the finals, and now it's slipping away'. That thought was haunting."

Agony turned into ecstasy just two balls later when Jaymeet was stumped. Kerala were just two wickets away. "For all the hard work we had put in, we deserved some luck," Baby said.

And lucky they got - like how they took the ninth wicket when they didn't have any reviews left. Siddharth Desai was given out caught at silly point, but Kerala's joy vanished as the review appeared to show no edge. A couple of seconds later, joy again. Ball-tracking showed three reds and Desai was ruled lbw instead of caught.

If that was a dramatic turn of events, it paled compared to what happened next.

With Gujarat's last wicket needing two runs to take the lead and qualify for the final, Sarwate flighted his delivery and Arzan Nagwaswalla aimed to mow the ball to the leg side. He connected off the thick inside edge, Nizar barely had any time to react at short leg, the ball bounced off his helmet and lobbed over the wicketkeeper to slip, where Baby caught it.

"My first instinct was 'not out' but I saw everyone around me celebrating and I also joined in," he said. Had Nizar taken evasive action, the outcome may have been different, but now Kerala had done it - qualified for their maiden Ranji final.

"Adi, we are going to Nagpur. Do what it takes to get us there."

Nazir Machan, Kerala's team manager, knew he was firing up Sarwate ahead of a tense final day of the semi-finals. Sarwate is from Nagpur. He was a key member of the Vidarbha team that won the Ranji Trophy back-to-back between 2017 and 2019. Ahead of this season, Sarwate's fitness was under scrutiny and he was no longer a guaranteed starter for Vidarbha. There was a perception he had let the team down in last year's final against Mumbai. But Shreyas Gopal's exit from the Kerala squad opened up a spot for a professional and Sarwate, 35, decided to take it.

He had endured a tough time in the semi-final. At the start of the fifth day, his figures were 1 for 111. He then took the three wickets Kerala needed to set up the final against Vidarbha.

"When you're out of the same team you've played for for so long, it's a terrible feeling," Baby said of Sarwate leaving Vidarbha. "I told him during the group stages itself - 'imagine you are playing Vidarbha in the final. You'll take a five-for and show the ball to them'. It'll be a subtle message to them that 'you missed me'.

"Sarwate and Jalaj [Saxena] - with those two guys in the team, I don't have to worry at all. They can bowl all day if needed. They're full of heart, two of the most hard-working guys."

Before Sarwate polished off Gujarat's lower order, Saxena had cracked the game open with a four-wicket haul on the fourth day. Between them, the two have picked up 68 wickets this season.

"Jalaj Saxena is 38, look at his fitness. Can you bowl 70 overs in an innings without fitness? He is a shining example of how fitness can take you places even at 38," Baby, 36 himself, said. "When people see him working hard, or me putting in the hard yards, the youngsters are motivated too.

"It's important to build that culture, and that's where Amay sir has been wonderful. The message to this team was clear: fitness is paramount and can't be comprised."

"Babychan, let's do it for Kerala."

Sanju Samson texted Baby after the semi-final. He's currently recovering after a finger surgery. But even before that injury, his missing a preparatory camp and then not being picked for the Vijay Hazare Trophy had led to friction with the Kerala Cricket Association (KCA). But in their moment of glory, Samson put that behind him.

He was cheering from afar, as were Raiphi Gomez, VA Jagadeesh, S Sreesanth, Rohan Prem and Tinu Yohannan, among others. In 2018-19, Gomez, Prem and Mohammed Azharuddeen were among those who had led a revolt against Baby's captaincy and staged a walkout. They were subsequently fined for dissent.

All that's in the past now.

In the semi-final, Azharuddeen, named after the former India captain, forged a partnership with Baby, whose half-century helped build the platform for Kerala's 457. Azharuddeen made an unbeaten 177, his second first-class century

"Azhar can give you a lot of tension," Baby said with a laugh. "We know if they bowl short, he will compulsively play the pull. He likes to hit the ball in the air to spin. In the semi-final, we had to keep reminding him how after all the hard work and grind to get this far, one bad shot could undo all that hard work. But the best part of his 177 was until he got to 150, he didn't play a single shot in the air. For him to shelve his flamboyance for the team showed his character.

"In my first meeting with Amay sir in August, I told him we needed just two things: discipline and strengthening of our lower-order batting. I think so far we've delivered on both counts. Now, the talk within the group is we don't have one game left, but two. Final and Irani Cup [between the Ranji winners and a rest of India team]. We are going in with that mindset."

After the semi-final, the KCA said Nizar's helmet, off which the ball bounced for that match-winning catch, would be preserved and showcased at their headquarters. The replica of the Ranji Trophy will make a fitting companion to that.