Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 Trophy: Vidarbha punish hapless Manipur

Vidarbha continued their unbeaten start to the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 competition with another victory on the 11th of November when they cruised past Manipur at Thumba.

The reigning Ranji Trophy champions won the toss and elected to bat. Skipper, Faiz Fazal, alongside Akshay Kolhar, stitched a good opening stand before the former departed with the scoreboard reading 34-1 after 4.3 overs.

Once Fazal was dismissed, Jitesh Sharma, Vidarbha’s white-ball specialist, grabbed the bull by the horns and churned out a remarkable innings of 73 off 50 balls. The wicket-keeper remained unbeaten and his effort was laced with 8 fours and 2 sixes.

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Though they lost a bit of steam through the middle overs, courtesy the dismissals of Ganesh Satish and Shalabh Shrivastava, Rushabh Rathod ensured that Vidarbha put up an above-par total on the board as he dragged them to 150 in their allotted 20 overs.

In reply, Manipur were pegged back early when Shrikant Wagh cleaned up K Narisingh Yadav on the first delivery of the innings. Though a partnership blossomed between Al Bashid Muhammed and Sagatpam Singh, they failed to keep up with the required run rate as they kept languishing behind before eventually giving up the chase.

The latter in particular, played a strange innings of 36 from 56 deliveries before his troubled stay at the crease was curtailed by Darshan Nalkande.

However, the star of Vidarbha’s bowling show was pacer, Yash Thakur, who conjured incredible figures of 4-0-5-4. He was ably supported by Nalkande, who picked up a couple of wickets and the trio of Akshay Karnewar, Akshay Wakhare and Wagh, who bagged a wicket apiece.

The victory ensured that Vidarbha solidified their position at the top of Group B of the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 tournament and they would be hoping to continue in a similar vein when they take on Rajasthan on the 12th of November at Thiruvananthapuram.

Scores: Vidarbha 150/6 (Jitesh Sharma 73*; LA Singh 1/19); Manipur 80/9 (Sagatpam Singh 36; Yash Thakur 4/5)