2017-18 Ranji Trophy: 5 things that went wrong for Tamil Nadu this season 

Lack of motivation

One of the main things needed to maintain top spot is for the players to have the desire to win. Irrespective of the situation, a player should give his 100% and look to win the match for his team. Settling for anything less than a win is not a winner's mentality.

In the ongoing Ranji Trophy, this quality was absent in few of the Tamil Nadu players as it looked like the players were happy to settle for three points with a first-innings lead rather than going for the six points with an outright win.

The batsmen didn't show any intent to score quick runs as only two of them who scored over 250 runs in the season had a strike-rate of over 55. Scoring at 3.2 runs per over for over five sessions in a four-day game will not benefit the team at all.

Adding to this, the players dropped a lot of catches. Washington Sundar dropped Ashwin Hebbar when Andhra were 60-odd for the loss of five wickets in TN's first match of the season and the batsman went on to register a fifty, helping his side take a big first-innings lead.

Even in the game against Odisha, TN conceded the first-innings lead even after scoring 530, thanks to a handful of dropped catches from the fielders and the substitute wicketkeeper R Rohith.