Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy Final: Suresh Raina leads UP to maiden title
In the final of the 2016 Syed Mushtaq Ali, the Irfan Pathan-led Baroda lost to the Suresh Raina-led Uttar Pradesh by 38 runs. This is Uttar Pradesh's first Syed Mushtaq Ali title as they beat two-time winners Baroda in Mumbai on Wednesday.
A superior bowling performance from the UP bowlers made sure that Baroda kept losing wickets at regular intervals and restricted the opponent batsmen from scoring freely.
Baroda won the toss and chose to field at the Wankhede Stadium. The openers, Prashant Gupta and Samarth Singh got UP off to a good start with Prashant Gupta scoring 49 off 41 balls.
After Samarth Singh got out for 19, captain Suresh Raina came to the crease and played a captain's knock as he remained unbeaten until the end of the innings. Raina's 60-run partnership with Prashant Gupta was crucial in UP setting a good target.
Piyush Chawla and Umang Sharma contributed with useful knocks of 17 and 12 to help their side up the run rate in the latter stages.
Bhargav Bhatt was the pick of the bowlers for Baroda as he got both his wickets in a single over. Irfan Pathan, the tournament's highest wicket-taker, was very expensive as he conceded 44 runs in his four overs. Pathan, Hardik Pandya and Soaeb Tai picked up a wicket each.
In reply, Baroda never really got going as they kept losing wickets in regular intervals. At 48/1 after 6.2 overs, Baroda would have been looking at an easy win with highest run-getter Pandya at the crease.
However, no batsman was able to stick around enough after the fall of Mrunal Devdhar's wicket. Tai was the top-scorer for Baroda after he scored 26 off 23 balls. Raina managed his bowlers well as they did not disappoint by not giving anything away to the Baroda batsmen.
Ankit Rajpoot picked up three wickets for UP while Amit Mishra and Kuldeep Yadav picked up two wickets each.
UP won their maiden Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy title after they had come close once before in 2013/14 when they lost against today's opponents, Baroda. Baroda, having performed well throughout the tournament, will feel hard done by after a disappointing batting performance.
Scorecard:
Uttar Pradesh Batting: 163/7, 20 overs
| Batsman | Runs (Balls) |
| Prashant Gupta | 49 (41) |
| Samarth Singh | 19 (13) |
| Suresh Raina | 47* (37) |
| Eklavya Dwivedi | 0 (2) |
| Piyush Chawla | 17 (13) |
| Umang Sharma | 12 (6) |
| Akshdeep Nath | 4 (3) |
| Praveen Kumar | 3 (4) |
| Amit Mishra | 2* (2) |
Baroda Bowling:
| Bowler | Overs | Runs | Wickets |
| Irfan Pathan | 4 | 44 | 1 |
| Munaf Patel | 4 | 21 | 0 |
| Hardik Pandya | 3 | 26 | 1 |
| Rishi Arothe | 3 | 25 | 0 |
| Bhargav Bhatt | 2 | 13 | 2 |
| Soaeb Tai | 4 | 31 | 1 |
Baroda Batting: 125/7, 20 overs
| Batsman | Runs (Balls) |
| Kedar Devdhar | 19 (12) |
| Mrunal Devdhar | 14 (15) |
| Hardik Pandya | 13 (14) |
| Deepak Hooda | 15 (15) |
| Yusuf Pathan | 14 (27) |
| Soaeb Tai | 26* (23) |
| Irfan Pathan | 10 (8) |
| Pinal Shah | 0 (1) |
| Rishi Arothe | 5* (5) |
Uttar Pradesh Bowling:
| Bowler | Overs | Runs | Wickets |
| Praveen Kumar | 4 | 31 | 0 |
| Ankit Rajpoot | 4 | 30 | 3 |
| Amit Mishra | 4 | 33 | 2 |
| Piyush Chawla | 4 | 16 | 0 |
| Kuldeep Yadav | 4 | 12 | 2 |
Man of the match: Suresh Raina