Thanks to fast bowler KM Asif’s five wickets, Kerala pulled off an upset by defeating defending champion Mumbai by 15 runs in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy Group A match here on Thursday.
Mumbai suffered its first defeat in its five matches in this T20 tournament but still the team is on top of the group with 16 points. With its third win, Kerala has reached third place in this pool of five teams with 12 points, while Andhra is also at second place with 12 points. Kerala is slightly behind Andhra in net run rate.
The Mumbai team, adorned with star players, while chasing the target of 179 runs, was all out for 163 runs in 19.4 overs. The Mumbai team, led by Indian fast bowler Shardul Thakur, included players like Indian T20 captain Suryakumar Yadav and Shivam Dubey.
Batting first, Kerala scored 178 runs for five wickets. Sanju Samson gave a great start to Kerala. He scored 46 runs in 28 balls which included eight fours and one six.
However, due to the dismissal of Rohan Kunummal (02) and Samson, Kerala’s score in the seventh over became 58 runs for two wickets. Samson kept most of the strikes to himself and faced Mumbai’s star bowlers responsibly. After his dismissal the scoring pace slowed down. Vishnu Vinod scored 43 runs in 40 balls.
Vinod made a partnership of 63 runs with Mohammad Azharuddin (32). Fast bowler Sharafuddin’s inning of 35 runs in 15 balls took Kerala to a strong score.
After the early dismissal of Ayush Mhatre (03), Mumbai put the team in a strong position with the 80-run partnership between Ajinkya Rahane (32) and Sarfaraz Khan (52) for the second wicket.
In the 12th over, Mumbai’s score was 99 runs for three wickets and they were moving towards the target comfortably. But in the 18th over, Asif (five wickets for 25 runs) changed the course of the match. He took the wickets of Sairaj Patil (13), Suryakumar (32) and Shardul (0) in the same over, taking the score to 149 runs for seven wickets.
Asif ended Mumbai’s innings by dismissing Shams Mulani and Hardik Tamore in the last over. Thirty-two-year-old Asif has got a lot of success from this Lucknow pitch this season, so far he has taken 13 wickets in four matches of Mushtaq Trophy.
In the other match of the group, Assam defeated Vidarbha by 58 runs while Andhra defeated Chhattisgarh by eight wickets. Whereas Odisha defeated Railways by one run in a thrilling match.
