Sameer Dighe “Stumped!”
Sameer Dighe is a right-handed batsman and a wicket-keeper. His main chance at international cricket did not come until the 1999–2000 season, at which time he was 31 years of age. Dighe has played 6 Test Matches and 23 One Day Internationals. He scored 141 runs in Test Matches and 256 runs in One Day Internationals and played 83 First Class Matches scoring 3958 runs. He has 12 catches and two stumpings to his credit in Test Matches and 19 catches and 5 stumpings in One Day Internationals. Dighe made his First Class Debut for Mumbai Cricket team against during the 1990 91 Ranji season where Gujarat Cricket he scored 107 runs and finished season with 440 runs in 6 innings at an average of 73.33 with one half-century and two hundreds.
Sameer played 58 matches for Mumbai in which he took 176 catches and did 23 stumpings and scored 3,054 runs. He was also captain for Mumbai in 1999-2000 Ranji Season. Dighe later entered coaching serving as head coach of Hong Kong at the 2007 ICC CRICKET LEAGUE SEASON. He was coach of Tripura Cricket Team from 2006 to 2008 as well as fielding coach of Mumbai Indians during 2008 IPL .Later, he was named as selector of in 2009 of Mumbai. At present he is the Coach of Mumbai Ranji team. Sandeep Hattangadi cornered him for a quick chat for Cinebuster.
What are the reasons of the dismal performance of Mumbai team in this season? A team over the years which is supposed to be the nursery of class batsmen like Sunil Gavaskar, Dilip Vengsarkar, Sachin Tendulkar, is not even in the chase for the top spot?
I agree over the last few years our performance has not been good. But that is because the other teams have grown in stature and they are now very competitive. Our batsmen need to score at-least 500 runs on board to give the bowlers something to bowl at. If the batsmen who are big names like Akhil Herwadkar, Prithvi Shaw, Aditya Tare, Suryakant Yadav, don’t score runs then a loss is imminent because our bowling attack has international bowlers like Shardul Thakkar, Dhawal Kulkarni, who can demolish the batting of any team. But the positive is that a batsman like Siddhesh Lad has emerged and is very consistent at the top level. He is a good choice for the future. We had high hopes from Suryakant Yadav who has been our premier batsman but he didn’t score the runs which we expected from him.
Our Mumbai team is known to have a ‘very ‘khadoos’ , never say die attitude. Then what went wrong? After winning more than 41 Ranji trophy finals, why are we today at the bottom of the table?
Yes. I agree. But we have recently had a chop and stay attitude in our team and many players have not been given equal opportunities. Moreover our star batsmen like Ajinkya Rahane, Shreyas Iyer, Aditya Tare have been called for international duties. Due to the IPL, some of our players have lost focus on the domestic season and they need to concentrate more on the Domestic level. A Premier tournament like the Duleep Trophy has lost its former importance.
The Indian team is on top in all three formats. What is the reason for that?
I would entirely give the credit to our captain Virat Kohli who leads from the front and scores in almost every match and almost every inning and makes big scores againsyt any opposition bowling attack and he has earned the respect of his fellow team mates and they give him all the support he needs and our bowling attack to has improved vastly with bowlers like Bumrah, Bhuvenshwar Kumar, Umesh Yadav, Ishant Sharma, Mohammed Shami, Ravichandran Ashwin, Kuldeep Yadav, Chahal, all being match winning bowlers.
What do you feel about the forthcoming South Africa Tour?
It will be a very tough tour because they have hard bouncy pitches and their bowling with Steyn, Rabada, etc is going to be very tough to face and their batting with the likes of AB ‘DVilliers, Faf Du Plessis, Hashim Amla, is going to be very strong.
Who do you think we have to depend on a lot to make a match against the Proteas?
We have to depend on our proven batsmen like Rahane,Pujara, Kohli, M Vijay, Pandya, to make a good match against the Proteas.
What do you think about the present Indian wicket keeper Wriddhiman Saha?
I can vouch for the fact that he is the best international wicket keeper batsman we have at the moment and he is set for future glories and Parthiv Patel is a good deputy for him on the South African tour. I Feel Parthiv should get an opportunity in our ODI matches and T20 matches as he is an attacking opening batsman and should do well at the top.
You had a very brief international career!
One can say that I could have played more but due to circumstances I couldn’t but I have no regrets and I would like to thank the BCCI, and the MCA(Mumbai Cricket Association) for showing so much faith in me. I am hoping to coach Mumbai to be a top class winning team and also hoping to be a part of the forthcoming IPL.
Who in your view is going to be the star of the future?
Our very young captain batsman Prithvi Shaw has bright prospects and I am sure he will lead India Under-19 team to glory in the forthcoming Under-19 World Cup.