After doubts about his red-ball game, the Mumbai batter has found confidence through a prolific start to the Ranji season

Vishal Dikshit

Published: Nov 5, 2026, 1:47 PM (7 hrs ago)

Angkrish Raghuvanshi is just 22. He is still coming to terms with the challenges that top-flight cricket brings both on and off the field. He spent many months leading into the ongoing domestic season recovering and rehabbing from the finger injury he sustained during IPL 2026 that kept him out of action for five months.

When the Ranji Trophy season kicked off last month, Raghuvanshi had played just four first-class games since his debut two years ago. He was aware that the Mumbai side was fraught with international players and established domestic names, which made it a lot harder to break into the squad. But that awareness wasn't enough to put the doubts that had crept up within him to bed. What Raghuvanshi needed was runs.

After starting his season with a 20 against Himachal Pradesh, Raghuvanshi has put together scores of 78, 79, 114 and 67* to average 89.50 as the first leg of the Ranji season comes to an end. That 114 against Haryana was his first century in the format and it made him feel that he did belong in red-ball cricket too.

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"I had a conversation with my coach Abhishek [Nayar] sir," Raghuvanshi said last week in Mumbai. "I was making it a huge thing in my head that if I'm playing red ball then maybe I don't have the skillset to play red ball. He's been a legend of this format in Ranji Trophy so I was picking his brains and I was asking him what am I doing wrong and am I not disciplined enough? The only thing he told me was that at the end of the day it's just cricket. Whether I'm playing white ball or red ball, my job is to go out there and score runs. And he said that just go out there and don't worry about what's going to happen, just think about how you can hit that ball for a boundary. And if it's not there to hit, then defend. That conversation with him lifted a lot of pressure in my mind and it's been working for me.

"I don't know about the perception of others but within myself I did have some doubts. It's natural that until you prove it to yourself, you keep asking yourself whether you can do it or not."

Raghuvanshi had not played first-class cricket for a year when he joined the Mumbai squad after the first round. The wait could have been longer had it not been for Yashasvi Jaiswal's departure for New Zealand for the A games and the hamstring injury to the other opener Ayush Mhatre in the first match.

Raghuvanshi would not have had such doubts in white-ball games because he has spent the last three IPLs with Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) where he has become a regular at Nos. 3 and 4 and has featured in 35 games for them so far. He knew he could attack in white-ball games, but this Ranji season was about trying to figure out his red-ball game. Raghuvanshi first went to the Under-23 CK Nayudu Trophy where he put up scores of 201 and 203 and then joined the Mumbai squad from the second round.

"When you have runs behind you, you automatically bat well," Raghuvanshi said. "If you're in good form, you know that only your mistake can get you out, nobody can get you out. I was looking to bat compactly as much as possible.

"I don't really think too much about playing time. I'm a batter, my job is to score runs and when I'm in the middle I just think about how I'm going to get that next run or next boundary. I'm not thinking too much about playing time. A lot of people say you should play time but I've always been taught that while I'm batting just try to look for options for your next boundary and your next runs. So that's how I go about it."

Raghuvanshi's strokeplay this season has proven he doesn't change his game completely when the colour of the ball changes but adapts to the match situation and the conditions. He stuck to his aggressive game against Haryana when he raced from 50 to 100 in just 66 balls with the help of six fours and a six after he had set his eye in. When Mumbai came out to bat again and were chasing a modest 97, Raghuvanshi dispatched the Haryana bowlers all around the BKC Ground for a 29-ball half-century and finished with seven fours and three sixes to help Mumbai get their third bonus-point win in a row.

"Angkrish is a special talent," his captain Siddhesh Lad said on Thursday evening after Mumbai's fourth win in a row. "Last game in the second innings the way he batted, he showed what he has. He was with the Mumbai team for the last two-three seasons but this year he has shown why he deserves to be in the Mumbai team and in the last two-three games he's shown why he's special."

Raghuvanshi's next challenge was not as straightforward though. When Mumbai were asked to bat by Railways in the fourth round, they were welcomed by an overcast morning and a slightly green pitch that aided both swing and seam movement. A watchful Raghuvanshi curbed his attacking instincts and stuck to his mantra of playing "each ball by merit and play it as best as possible." On a surface that demanded a lot more technical expertise, he shouldered arms regularly outside off, defended close to his body and went for his shots only when the ball was there to be hit.

Batting with an out-of-form partner Divyaansh Saxena, Raghuvanshi led the century opening stand with a 70-ball half-century studded with eight fours and a six that showed his shots were ready whenever the bowlers erred with their lines and lengths. He was looking set for a long innings and a second century in a row when pace bowler Himanshu Sangwan, who is famous for dismissing Virat Kohli in the batter's last first-class game, got one ball to hold its line after lunch and drew Raghuvanshi's edge on 78.

When the Mumbai opener returned to bat, on the third day, the pitch was much flatter, the sun was out like it was a summer's day, and Raghuvanshi was back in his element. He unleashed his flourishing drives, he found gaps regularly, he raced to a 57-ball fifty and again missed out on a century when he handed a catch to cover on 79.

Raghuvanshi, and his coach Nayar, will count this as a successful outing against the red ball as the domestic teams now switch to the 20-over Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy.

"My batting even in the shorter format, I just keep it simple," he said. "I don't try to do too many fancy things and I think that helps me manage formats because it's just keeping a good, stable base and watching the ball."

Vishal Dikshit is an assistant editor at Cricinfo