After beating Bengal in the final convincingly, captain Amol Muzumdar declared that Mumbai's 37th Ranji Trophy triumph on Monday was "special".
Mumbai converted an ordinary start, which saw them pointless after the first three games in the Elite league, to go on and win the title.
"I would rate this victory very up high the order because it has not been easy. The manner in which we have come back after the poor start to the campaign is credit to all the players, the association and the support staff," said Muzumdar, after the 132-run victory on the fourth day of the five-day final, at the Wankhede stadium in Mumbai.
Muzumdar said the team was under pressure after being unable to score a point in the initial part of the campaign but fought their way back remarkably.
"That was pressure time and effort was required from the boys... and they showed it," said the middle-order batsman.
Though things looked slightly threatening for Mumbai on Monday, when Manoj Tewari and Sourav Ganguly were in the midst of a superb partnership, Muzumdar said he knew that it was a matter of just one wicket to change the momentum.
"Bengal were going quite well at one stage during their [Ganguly and Tewari's] alliance but we always knew that once we got the breakthrough we would run through the side; credit to all our bowlers," he added.
Dwelling on the team's batting, Muzumdar believes that the middle-order is now looking stable after being fragile for the past two to three seasons.
While complimenting the efforts of Sachin Tendulkar in the passage to victory, Muzumdar said, "To have a player of his experience alongside is always a great learning process. It is a tremendous achievement by Sachin and tremendous effort by all."
