For the first time in their history, Kerala performed exceptionally well in the league stages of 2017/18 edition of the Ranji Trophy. They played 6 matches and won 5 of them.

Their only loss came against Gujarat. With no big names in their squad, all the players performed as a unit. Under the captaincy of Sachin Baby, Kerala finished second with 31 points. Last time, Kerala best performance was in the 1993/94 season where they reached the pre-quarterfinal stage.

Here we look at the 5 reason why Kerala have done well to reach the knockout stages in 2017/18 Ranji trophy for the first time.