In a tightly contested affair, the Southern giants defeated their longstanding Western rivals by just 9 runs in Elite Group B of the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 opening round fixture on Thursday in Guwahati.
Mumbai began the match in a great fashion, dismissing Karnataka openers Mayank Agarwal (0) and Devdutt Padikkal (5) early. But then a resolute stand between captain Manish Pandey (84) and experienced middle-order bat Karun Nair (72) brought their team back in the contest. The duo took their team to a fighting total of 166/4.
Mohit Avasthi (2/32) and Tushar Deshpande (2/38) were among the wickets for Mumbai, while Atharva Ankolekar (0/25) and Tanush Kotian (0/25) kept things tight.
In the run-chase, Mumbai had captain Ajinkya Rahane playing a knock of 75 off 54 balls. Rahana anchored the innings, but the rest of the batting unit couldn’t quite get going, apart from Siddhesh Lad (32). They eventually ended with just 157/6 in their 20 overs.
Spinners KC Cariappa (3/26) and Krishnappa Gowtham (2/26), and seamer Vidyadhar Patil (1/25) were the real heroes with the ball for Karnataka.
In other games of Elite Group B, Bengal dominated Chattisgarh towards an easy seven-wicket win, and Services kept their nerves in a tight contest with Baroda to achieve victory by just two wickets.
Bengal restricted Chattisgarh to 118/7 thanks to an allround bowling display, where Mukesh Kumar (2/26) was the top wicket-taker. Akhil Herwadkar played the longer ranger in the Chattisgarh innings with his 73.
With the asking rate hardly challenging, Bengal comfortably reached the winning post after a chase that featured captain Sudip Chatterjee’s fifty (51*) unbeaten fifty.
In the Services-Baroda game, Nitin Yadav (3/22) and Diwesh Pathania (2/21) proved to be the chief destroyers for Services, helping restrict Baroda for just 124/9. Bhanu Pania scored a fifty (55) in the middle-order but it was a real slow burner.
In the second half, Services stuttered their way through the chase but thanks to a fine lower-order knock from Pathania (41*), they eventually reached home on the final ball with two wickets left.
In Elite Group A, Tamil Nadu kicked off their campaign with a 12-run victory over Maharashtra, with allrounder Vijay Shankar (42*) top-scoring for them and Murugan Ashwin (2/18) being the pick of the bowlers.
Odisha defeated Goa by four wickets in a low-scoring affair, where Jayanta Behera (3/14), Bikash Rout (3/27) and Ashish Rai (2/20) shared eight wickets between them and kept the opposition down to just 104/8. That, before Odhisha had an iffy run-chase, but twenties from Anshuman Rath (29) and Govinda Poddar (24) was enough to seal their victory at the end.
Punjab eased past Puducherry, restricting them to just 106 before chasing the paltry score down with eight wickets in hand. Abhishek Sharma (3/7) and Siddharth Kaul (3/6) ended with fantastic figures with the ball for them. Abhishek, the skipper, then scored an unbeaten half-century (54*) to showcase his allround prowess and take his team through to a win.
The Elite Group C also had three matches where Rajasthan came out triumphant over Jharkhand by six wickets; Haryana inched past Himachal, and Andhra clinched victory against Jammu & Kashmir.
MP dominated Assam in Group D, whereas Gujarat feasted on hapless Kerala, and Bihar didn’t have to toil much for a win against Railways.
There were four games played in the Plate Group, and they saw Vidarbha beating Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland making a winning start against Manipur, Meghalaya defeating Mizoram and Tripura conquering the Sikkim challenge.
