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MUMBAI: They missed out on the bonus point when they lost first innings centurion Ayush Mhatre (15, caught at short cover off left-arm spinner Satyajeet Bachhav), but Mumbai took just 53 minutes on Monday morning to perform the last rites and wrap up a nine-wicket win over neighbours Maharashtra in their Ranji Trophy Elite Group A match at the MCA ground in BKC.
The defending champions thus achieved their primary objective of putting their campaign back on track after the stunning away defeat to Baroda, which was perhaps the perfect wake-up call, the hiccup they needed to find their groove in the 2024-25 Ranji season.The six points that they bagged in the ‘Maharashtra Derby’ here after Prithvi Shaw (39, 36b, 5×4) and ‘keeper-bat Hardik Tamore (21 not out, 26b, 3×3) knocked off the remaining runs, have now left them placed fourth in Group A, and they now travel to Agartala to play table-toppers Tripura from October 26.
“(We got some) Much-needed points on the board, which is very important. Last season, we had started well, but this time, it (Baroda defeat) was a good eye-opener for us, especially after the Irani Trophy (triumph). We played hard but lost that match. And coming over here, we knew we needed six or seven points, we got six points, so happy with that,” left-arm spinning all-rounder Shams Mulani, who finished with a match haul of six for 162 (3-7 & 3-155), told reporters after the match.
Somewhere, Mumbai would still be ruing missing out on the bonus point, especially when things become tight at the end stages of the league phase. “It hurts, but you know, it’s cricket. Sometimes, you miss that one point, but last game, we scored 0 points. In this game, we scored six, and we’ll take them,” Mulani said.
“We reflected pretty hard on the Baroda game, saw videos of the match, and thought where we can improve as a bowling unit, what lengths we can bowl. Some people took the responsibility of saying they could’ve done better, which is a very good sign for a team. In this match, We came back harder in this match. I feel that the turning point was when we dismissed them for 126 in the first innings,” Mulani explained.
Maharashtra coach gives bat to Mhatre
Mumbai’s biggest gain in this match, or perhaps this season, is 17-year-old opener Ayush Mhatre, who cracked a brilliant 176 -his maiden first-class hundred -in the first innings against his team here. Impressed by Ayush’s terrific ton, Maharashtra head coach and former Mumbai wicketkeeper Sulakshan Kulkarni went to the Mumbai dressing room and gifted a bat to the 17-year-old opener after the match, with Suryakumar Yadav and Shardul Thakur, who played under Kulkarni when he was the Mumbai head coach from 2011-13, watching.
“Ayush’s talent and maturity, while making a big hundred against us here, have impressed me, and I wanted to give him a bat as a gesture of encouragement to him. He reminded me of the likes of Sachin Tendulkar, Prithvi Shaw and Yashasvi Jaiswal, who stroked their first hundred for Mumbai when they were between 15 to 18, before going on to play for India. He has an ‘X’ factor about him. His batting is graceful. He’s so young, but he still dominated our pacers,” Kulkarni told TOI.
Praising Ayush, Mulani said, “I think that he (Ayush) is a tremendous talent. He bats a bit like Shaw. In fact, when they bat together, it feels like two brothers are batting! He plays his shots well. The main thing is that he expresses himself. He doesn’t fear any opposition, and I think that is something which will take him long (in his career).”
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