On the first day of this year, when Vidarbha beat Mumbai in a Ranji Trophy game at Nagpur, little did their coach Chandrakant Pandit imagine that he would have to fly back to Mumbai the next day. That happened because his childhood coach Ramakant Achrekar passed away. After attending Achrekar's funeral on January 3, Pandit travelled to Rajkot for Vidarbha's January 7 league game against Saurashtra.

The pain and anguish of losing his guiding force stayed with Pandit and yesterday, he dedicated his role in Vidarbha's second successive Ranji Trophy triumph to Achrekar after Saurashtra were beaten by 78 runs in Nagpur.