Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 Trophy: Mumbai hold their nerve to edge past Puducherry

Mumbai held their nerve as they triumphed over a valiant Puducherry side by 27 runs at the Wankhede Stadium in the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 competition.

After winning the toss and electing to bat, Mumbai got off to a blistering start as they collected 27 runs of their opening two overs. Aditya Tare and Jay Bista were particularly severe on R Vinay Kumar who was carted for 15 runs in the second over of the match.

However, the pacer got the better of Bista a few overs later when the opener perished trying to attempt a ramp shot. Shreyas Iyer came out to bat after the fall of the first wicket and looked extremely scratchy. His cause wasn’t helped by Tare’s dismissal, who departed having scored 20 off 14 deliveries.

Thereafter, Suryaumar Yadav and Shreyas stitched together a vital stand before the latter holed out to deep square leg when trying to hoist Sagar Trivedi over the fence.

Fortunately for Mumbai though, their skipper took over the run-scoring mantle adroitly and play an immensely dextrous knock of 57 off 37 innings, an essay that was the perfect blend of strength and subtlety.

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He was ably supported towards the end by Siddhesh Lad who popped up with a vital knock of 39 off 22 balls, an innings which eventually propelled Mumbai to a score in excess of 171.

As for Puducherry, Trivedi was the pick of the bowlers as he bagged a four-wicket haul whereas Aravindaraj also kept things tight with a tidy spell of fast-bowling.

In reply, Shams Mulani bagged a couple of wickets in the PowerPlay as Puducherry’s chase was dented early. However, Arun Karthik and Paras Dogra played brilliant knocks to keep the visitors in the hunt.

Yet, once the latter was dismissed on 45 by Tushar Deshpande, Puducherry’s pursuit of the target fell off a cliff, meaning that they had to feed off scraps for the remainder of the game.

And, even though Subramanian Anand kept finding the odd boundary, he had to wage a lone battle as Mumbai emerged victorious by 27 runs.

For the hosts, Deshpande and Mulani bagged two wickets each whereas Atif Attarwala, Shivam Dube and Shardul Thakur scalped one apiece.

The victory meant that the home side notched up their fourth consecutive win in the competition and they would now look to seal qualification against Bengal on the 14th of November.