Ashish stars as Railways end Mumbai's unbeaten run
Railways dished out a clinical performance in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy here Wednesday, crushing formidable Mumbai by 57 runs and snapping their unbeaten run in the group stage of the domestic T20 tournament.
Coming into the match, Mumbai had won all their games so far in the tournament.
But in their Group C match against Railways, the domestic giants put up a sub-par show.
Put into bat by Mumbai skipper Ajinkya Rahane, Railways posted a competitive 175/5 in their 20 overs with opener Pratham Singh (89) top-scoring.
Chasing 176, the famed Mumbai batting line-up collapsed as they were shot out for 118 in 18.1 overs.
For Railways, their openers Pratham Singh (89 off 60 balls) and Mrunal Devdhar (43 off 20 balls) put up 65 runs for the first wicket.
Pacer Tushar Deshpande got the breakthrough for Mumbai after he cleaned up Devdhar, who struck two fours and five sixes.
Railways lost one-down Prashant Awasthi (0) early.
But the quick fall of two wickets did not deter 26- year-old Pratham, who kept playing his shots.
He hit nine fours and three sixes as Mumbai bowlers were taken to task and it was due to his blazing knock that Railways made 175/5.
Mumbai lost openers Rahane (4) and young prodigy Prithvi Shaw (6) cheaply, leaving them at 12-2.
In-form Shreyas Iyer (16) and dependable Siddhesh Lad (2) also fell in quick succession as Mumbai slumped to 33/4.
Barring Surya Kumar Yadav (38) no other batsman crossed 20-run individual mark.
Mumbai were never in the fray as they kept losing wickets and were eventually bundled out for 118.
For Railways, slow left-arm orthodox bowler Ashish Yadav (4-32) was the pick of the bowlers and was well supported by others.
Brief scores: At Indore: (Emerald High International School Ground): Railways 175/5 (Pratham Singh 89, Mrunal Devdhar 43; Tushar Deshpande 3-44, Siddesh Lad 1-9) won against Mumbai 118 all out (Surya Kumar Yadav 38, Shreyas Iyer 16; Ashish Yadav 4-32, Amit Mishra 2-14) by 57 runs.
Railways 4 points, Mumbai 0 points.
At Indore: (Holkar Stadium): Sikkim 90/8 (Milind 37, Bibek 18; Baltej Singh 2-13, Krishan Alang 2-17) lost to Punjab 95/1 (Shubman Gill 70 not out, Manan Vohra 13 not out; B B Sharma 1-18) by nine wickets.
Punjab 4 points, Sikkim 0 points.
At Surat: (C B Patel Ground): Tamil Nadu 138/9 (Murli Vijay 77, Chaturved N S 19 not out; Ankit Rajan Maini 3-29, K D Singh 2-30) lost to Himachal Pradesh 139/3 (P S Chopra 68 not out, E C Sen 35, Abhishek Tanwar 2-14) by seven wickets.
Himachal Pradesh 4 points, Tamil Nadu 0 points.
At Surat (Lalbhai Contractor Stadium): Vidarbha 161/6 (S U Srivastava 56, R R Rathod 38 not out; R R Biswa 2-26, Akash Kumar 1-28) won against Meghalaya 129/4 (Gurinder Singh 56 not out, R R Biswa 19; Yash Thakur 2-27, Akshay Wakhare 1-15) by 32 runs.
Vidarbha 4 points, Meghalaya 0 points.
