Mumbai’s Tanush Kotian raises the ball in the air as he greets spectators after taking a five-wicket haul with a total of 8 wickets in the second innings
Kotian bowled 65.3 overs across the two innings against Haryana, doing so in Mumbai’s October heat and humidity.
It was helping me in creating pressure on the batsmen and doubts in their minds,” he said. He said he had been working on improving his batting while focusing on accuracy with the ball. He said he had been waiting for an opportunity to bowl a long spell and wanted to give the captain confidence in his ability to do so. The ball was coming out from my hand well and I was getting the wickets from one end,” the Vikhroli resident said.
“I have improved a lot in line and length. I have brought in two-three variations which are helping me in deceiving and beating the batsman. I am trying to do that in every match and working on my accuracy as well. I have worked on different angles. Sometimes when I was bowling from over the wicket to the lefty, I was using angles and crease and it looked better as I was not allowing the batters to get set. Kotian also scored his 20th first-class half-century in Mumbai’s first innings. “I was waiting for this opportunity. I was trying to bowl as much as I could. I think this is the first time that I’ve bowled this much in a match. I’m giving the captain the confidence that I can bowl this much and can get that many wickets as well. In the last four years, we were all getting wickets together and this time I got the opportunity.
The off-spinner, who took three for 30 against Chandigarh in Mumbai’s opening match of the 2026-27 Ranji Trophy season, said he had worked on his line and length, added new variations and tried different angles to trouble batters.
I am trying to use that experience in my bowling,” Kotian told reporters after the match. Since last year, I’ve worked on ensuring that no matter which angle the captain asks me to bowl from, I feel confident in executing it,” he said. “I have had four years of progress and improvement in my bowling. I did a lot of tours, I was also with the India team. They all guided me a lot, like I was practising with (BCCI COE spin bowing coach) Sunil Joshi sir, Jatin (Paranjape) sir and Rajesh (Sanil) sir (childhood coach and mentor). A lot of people have guided me. “No, it’s not in my mind. Even though they selected Saran Jain, he’s doing well. I’m doing well too. But my aim is to perform as well as I can in the Mumbai team, or whether it’s Irani Cup or Duleep Trophy, wherever I go, in every match, I want to perform like that. In batting and bowling, the selectors will do their job and I want to do my job,” he replied. “As for the BGT, we’ll see. I’ve focused on being equally comfortable bowling ‘around the wicket’ and ‘over the wicket’ to both left-handers and right-handers.