T20 Mumbai League, Match 5: Triumph Knights Mumbai North East cruise past Mumbai North Panthers

Triumph Knights Mumbai North East consolidated their position at the top of the T20 Mumbai League standings with another clinical performance that saw them defeat Mumbai North Panthers by 34 runs in their last league encounter at the Wankhede stadium on Saturday.

Put into bat, Triumph Knights scored a formidable 179 for 8 and then restricted the opposition to 145 for 8 and also knocked them out of the tournament.

The win meant that Triumph Knights finished their league encounters with four wins from five outings and irrespective of the results in remaining games should finish among the top two teams.

Having already secured a place in the knock out stage, Triumph Knights decided to experiment with their combination and rested last match’s star performer Akash Parkar and even changed their opening combination.

And Shaheed Shaikh (19) and Shikhar Thakur (41) showed that they can do the job well as they scored 61 runs in 6 overs despite the opening over from Shivam Malhotra being a maiden.

The departure of Shaikh soon after did put some brakes on the scoring as the Blasters kept chipping wickets at regular intervals. But Sumit Ghadigaonkar, the regular opener who came at 6 down, took the team to a mammoth 179 for 8 by scoring 27 runs off the last over from Rakesh Prabhu.

Ghadigaonkar began with a four off the first ball and followed it up with three sixes and another boundary to end the innings on a high.

The Panthers' chase never got going as new ball bowler Vaibhav Singh sent back the Panthers’ openers in the very first over. The batting side tried to fight back thereafter with Yashasvi Jaiswal (29) and Sairaj Patil (34) getting starts.

But none of the batsmen managed to play a big inning as the Triumph Knights bowlers continued to bowl a tight line and kept taking wickets at regular intervals. Singh ended with three wickets for 21 runs while Aditya Dhumal chipped in with two wickets.

Speaking about his valuable inning, Man of the match, Sumit Ghadigaonkar, said "I knew we were running short of 20- 30 runs so my intention was to hit as many ball away from boundary line and thankfully was able to do it. It was a pressure game as we wanted to finish in the top two and everyone played well and together we were able to achieve our target."