NAGPUR: Captain Visarby Akshay Wadkar will receive the championship trophy after defeating the rest of India in the Cricket match of the Iranian Cup 2025, at the Vidarbha Cricket Association (VCA) stadium in Nagpur in Maharashtra. (PTI Photo) (PTI10_05_2025_000290B) Nagpur: Let’s get it out of the way – Akshay Wadkar is not your typical charming cricket. Outside the field, he could easily be mistaken with a careful engineer, serious, concentrated, almost scientific. The 4,700 monitoring on Instagram and minimal contributions underline his undervalued personality. But there is a different entity in the cricket field: disciplined, calculation and obsessed gravel that requires attention.Wadkar kindly called “Maalik” his young teammates and naturally settled in the captain and managed the young side of Vidarbha with instinct and intellect.His approach is methodical, yet clever. When Saransh Jain came to the fold in the first shifts, the desired result brought a single Yorker – deployed on Wadkara’s instructions to Yash Thakur.When Ruturaj Gaikwad looked terrible, Wadkar introduced a tactical plan, placed a siding in the field and led Thakur to mix short, slightly wide vans. Gaikwad fell for it, another testimony of Wadkar in the field.
Nagpur: Captain Visarbha Akshay Wadkar presents photographs after victory in the Irani Cup 2025 cricket match against the rest of India, in the Vidarbha Cricket Association (VCA), in Nagpur, Maharashtra. (PTI Photo) (PTI10_05_2025_000293B)
Wadkara’s eager eye for stumps also helps in decisive DRS calls – such as Ishan Kishan’s LBW against Rough Dubey or release Manav Suthara – often changing tight games in favor of VidarBy. “Being a goalie helps. You feel where the ball is pampered, how much it turns. Some calls come instinctively,” he said.After lifting the Iranian Cup, the captain quickly praised his bowling unit. “Although we must defend 120, I can count on winning my pitch. My bowling unit is the best in the home circuit,” he said.
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When Wadkar took the reins in the middle of the 2022-23 season, Vidarbha was in the crossing. Veterans like Faiz Fazal, Akshay Wakhare, Umesh Yadav and Ganesh Satish were approaching the dusk of their career. The team needed direction and Wadkar provided it.His first captain-triumph play over Gujarat in Jamtha-Byla’s view of an attitude he would instill. Despite the fact that Visarbha was overwhelmed for 74 years, he prevented a small goal of 72, released Gujarat for 54, signaled a shift in thinking: fearless, calculated, relentless.Since then, Wadkar has led the party to the trophy of Ranji and now their third Iranian Cup, which mixed the youthful enthusiasm with the strategic nous. Under his captain, Vidarbha became a party that is under pressure.
