T20 Mumbai, day 6: Shivam Dube's swashbuckling knock in vain; Shubham Ranjane stars in Andheri's third straight win
Day 6 of the T20 Mumbai saw two of the future torchbearers of Mumbai's batting, Shivam Dube and Shubham Ranjane, play two brilliant knocks for their respective teams. While one ended up on the winning side, the other fell short by three runs.
After losing the first match of the season against SoBo SuperSonics, ARCS Andheri registered their third straight win to move to the second spot in the points table after beating North Mumbai Panthers by six wickets in the first game of the day.
After choosing to bat first, the Panthers lost their skipper Prithvi Shaw in the second over of the game before opener Vikrant Auti and Karan Nande revived the innings by scoring 31 and 40 respectively. Once Auti was castled by Iqbal Abdulla in the ninth over, wickets kept tumbling at regular intervals as Gaurav Jathar, Iqbal and Salil Agharkar took centre stage and kept the Panthers batsmen at bay in the middle overs.
Thanks to Atif Attarwala's cameo of 26 off 10 balls, in the end, the Panthers reached 160. For Andheri, Salil, Iqbal and Gaurav ended up with two wickets apiece. Chasing 161, Andheri were reduced to 41/3 in nine overs before veteran Praful Waghela joined hands with youngster Shubham Ranjane.
The duo batted with great control and guided Andheri closer to victory before Waghela was run out five short of a well-deserved fifty. But, Ranjane, who was unbeaten on 71 off 42 balls with five fours and three sixes, ensured that his team crossed the line with two balls to spare.
Brief scores: North Mumbai Panthers: 160/7 in 20 overs (Karan Nande 40, Atif Attarwala 26*, Gaurav Jathar 2/6, Iqbal Abdulla 2/27) lost to ARCS Andheri 161/4 in 19.4 overs (Shubham Ranjane 71*, Praful Waghela 45) by six wickets
In the second match of the day NaMo Bandra Blasters got their first points of the competition as they beat bottom-placed Shivaji Park Lions in a thriller.
Shivam Dube's unbeaten 87 off 46 balls was not enough for the Lions to reach the target of 153 as they failed to score 18 runs off the last over. Barring Dube, none of the other batsmen contributed to the team's cause as Karsh Kothari ran through their batting order and ended up with figures of 4/19 in four overs which eventually got him the Player of the Match award.
Earlier in the day, Blasters, after being put into bat, managed just 152/4 in 20 overs. Skipper Shreyas Iyer managed to score just 7 while Sujit Nayak was unbeaten on 54 off 35 balls and took his side to a decent position despite some good bowling performances from Vijay D Gohil and Dube, who ended up with two wickets apiece.
Brief scores: NaMo Bandra Blasters 152/4 in 20 overs (Sujit Nayak 54, Prasad Powar 37*, Vijay D Gohil 2/26, Shivam Dube 2/27) beat Shivaji Park Lions 149/6 in 20 overs (Shivam Dube 87*, Karsh Kothari 4/19) by three runs.
Catch the T20 Mumbai action live on Star Sports 2/2HD/3 at 7:30 PM, and on Hotstar.