T20 Mumbai, Final: Prithvi Shaw and Atif Attarwala star as Panthers crowned champions
47-year-old leg-spinner Pravin Tambe held his nerve, defended 13 runs off his final over to help his team North Mumbai Panthers, led by the 19-year-old Prithvi Shaw, beat SoBo SuperSonics by 12 runs and clinch the second edition of T20 Mumbai.
At a stage, SuperSonics were well in the chase of their target of 144 as they were positioned at 105/4 after 15 overs with one of the tournament's top performers Parag Khanapurkar batting on 42 off 31 balls. That's when Prathamesh bowled a brilliant 16th over in which he conceded just five runs and took the all-important wicket of Parag for 43.
That's where the downfall began as Atif Attarwala backed up Prathamesh's over with a six-run over which was in turn followed by a seven-run over from Prathamesh, which also included the wicket of Khizer Dafedar, who was looking good in the middle.
With 21 needed off the last two overs, Atif, who was eventually named the Player of the Match, dismissed the dangerous Dhrumil Matkar and ran another dangerous batsman Rohan Raje out in a matter of four balls and tilted the game in his team's favour. Pravin Tambe maintained his cool and ran through the tail and helped his team register a thrilling win in the all-important final.
It was Atif, who set up the win for Panthers by dismissing the in-form SuperSonics batsmen Jay Bista and Hersh Tenk. Earlier in the game, Panthers, after opting to bat first, were off to a disastrous start as they lost four wickets inside the powerplay overs. Shrikant Kadam and skipper Prithvi Shaw rebuilt the innings as they put on 67 runs for the fifth wicket and some late flourish from Prithvi helped his team finish on 143/7 in their 20 overs.
Prithvi, who scored a match-winning 50 in the semis, was the star of the show yet again as he batted the innings and scored an unbeaten 61 off 55 balls with the help of three fours and two sixes and was adjudged the Player of the Series. For SuperSonics, Deepak Shetty took three wickets in vain while Rohan Raje and Matkar ended with two wickets apiece.
Brief scores: North Mumbai Panthers 143/7 in 20 overs (Prithvi Shaw 61*, Shashikant Kadam 37, Deepak Shetty 3/24) beat SoBo SuperSonics 131 in 19.4 overs (Parag Khanapurkar 43, Atif Attarwala 3/20, Prathamesh Dake 3/19) by 12 runs.