Charting Mumbai’s unrivalled legacy in the Ranji Trophy

The Mumbai cricket team, formerly known as Bombay cricket team, is the most successful side in the history of the Ranji Trophy with a mind-boggling 42 triumphs in the history of the competition.

Their last title-winning Ranji Trophy campaign came in the 2023-24 season when they beat Vidarbha in the final.

An annual competition organized by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), the Ranji Trophy is India’s premier domestic first-class cricket championship played by 38 teams that include at least one representative from each state and four of the eight union territories in the country.

The first edition of the tournament took place in the 1934-35 season and it was Mumbai, then Bombay, that won it before becoming the first side to successfully defend the trophy in the following edition.

Mumbai, to put things mildly, have been a powerhouse in the history of Ranji Trophy cricket with the next most successful team in the tournament’s history being Karnataka with eight triumphs.

Such has been the sheer scale of their dominance in the competition that no other team have managed to register double-digit triumphs in the Ranji Trophy, never mind Mumbai’s astonishing 42 wins.

With that in mind, let’s have a look at the spells of dominance enjoyed by Mumbai on the Ranji Trophy circuit as we assess Mumbai’s Ranji Trophy wins.

Mumbai Ranji Trophy wins

As already mentioned, Mumbai have won the Ranji Trophy on 42 occasions having been a part of 47 finals.

They finished as runners-up in the Ranji Trophy final on a mere six occasions and have a success rate of more than 87 per cent when competing in the final of the competition.

Apart from Mumbai, 18 other teams have won the tournament in the history of the competition with all of them combining for 48 Ranju Trophy wins, just seven more than Mumbai has achieved alone in its storied history in India’s premier domestic first-class cricket championship.

Let’s take a closer look at Mumbai’s unrivalled legacy and history over the years in the Ranji Trophy.

Ranji Trophy’s first champions 

The first-ever champions in the history of the tournament was aptly Mumbai. Known back then as Bombay, they beat Northern India in the 1934-35 final under the leadership of L. P. Jai.

The following season, Bombay became the first-ever side to successfully defend the Ranji Trophy after defeating Madras in the 1945-36 final with Hormasji Vajifdar as skipper.

Over the next decade and a half, Bombay would go on to clinch the Ranji Trophy final on four occasions in 1941–42, 1944–45, 1948–49, and 1951–52. 

While the first two of these successes came under the captaincy of the legendary Vijay Merchant, the subsequent two were won with K. C. Ibrahim and Madhav Mantri acting as skippers.

Mumbai’s decades of dominance

However, the best of Mumbai in the Ranji Trophy was yet to come as they went on to completely dominate and blow away the competition over the next two decades.

From 1953-54 to 1976-77, Mumbai would win an impressive 21 Ranji Trophy titles with Madras, Baroda, and Karnataka being the only three other teams to have won the tournament during this period.

During this era, Mumbai went on to win the Ranji Trophy for an unprecedented 15 times in a row, which is a record that still stands to this date.

Mumbai standout Ranji team in modern-day 

Even though they haven’t been as dominant in recent times as they were during their reign of dominance, Mumbai are still the standout team that all other sides in the tournament are always wary about.

They won the Ranji Trophy three times in the 1980s before claiming it another four times in the 1990s, including back-to-back wins in the 1993-94 and 1994-95 campaigns.

After the turn of the century, Mumbai have won the Ranji Trophy on eight occasions with their most recent win coming in the 2023-24 season after they beat Vidarbha in the final.

Ranji Trophy wins for Mumbai

Photo credit: Alamy