T20 Mumbai, semi-final 1: ARCS Andheri take on North Mumbai Panthers for a place in the final
The league stage of T20 Mumbai is done and dusted and the semi-final clashes have been decided. ARCS Andheri take on North Mumbai Panthers in the first semifinal while SoBo SuperSonics will face Aakash Tigers MWS in the second semifinal.
Group A table-toppers North Mumbai Panthers won their first two matches of the season convincingly but were surprisingly beaten in the next two. A 44-run victory over Triumphs Knights MNE in their final league game helped them seal a semi-final spot.
Vikrant Auti and Sairaj Patil have both reached the 150-run mark in the tournament. With skipper Prithvi Shaw showing signs of returning to form coupled with the form of their main batsmen, they look solid ahead of the semis. Atif Attarwala is their leading wicket-taker with eight wickets and has been backed up well by Rahul Sawant, who has six wickets.
Their opponents, ARCS Andheri, on the other hand, finished second in Group B in spite of ending up with more points than the Panthers in the league stage. After losing to SoBo SuperSonics in their opening game of the tournament, Andheri won their remaining four matches and made it to the semis.
Akhil Herwadkar is their leading run-scorer with 162 runs in five games at an average of 40.6 and he's been complemented well by Rajasthan Royals all-rounder Shubham Ranjane, who has scored 146 runs.
With the ball, they have some concerns as only Iqbal Abdulla and Tushar Deshpande managed at least four wickets in the whole tournament. Skipper Kevin Almeida will hope that their bowlers come to the party in the all-important semifinal.
Interestingly, both the teams in this clash finished at the bottom of the table last season.
ARCS Andheri: Iqbal Abdulla, Akhil Herwadkar, Sufiyan Shaikh (wk), Praful Waghela, Kevin Almeida (c), Tushar Deshpande, Shubham Ranjane, Azhar Ansari, Gaurav Jathar, Ankur Singh, Salil Agharkar, Tanmay Mishra, Pankaj Jaiswal, Amogh Bhatkal, Kadir Patel, Vaidik Murkar, Sumit Meher, Atharva Poojari, Vineet Sinha
North Mumbai Panthers: Pravin Tambe, Prathamesh Dake, Sairaj Patil, Vikrant Auti (c), Vishal Dhagaonkar, Swapnil Salvi (wk), Atif Attarwala, Rahul Sawant, Shashikant Kadam, Jude Singh, Onkar Dattaram Gurav, Sumeet Dhekale, Ajinkya Patil, Aashray Sajnani, Neil Narvekar, Moondeep Mangela, Karan Nande, Aditya Rane, Prithvi Shaw
Catch the T20 Mumbai action live on Star Sports 2/2HD/3 at 7:30 PM, and on Hotstar.