Rahane’s blitzkrieg powers Mumbai to a crushing win

Mumbai’s juggernaut crushed Odisha by nine wickets at the Ekana Cricket Stadium here on Monday as the defending champion topped the Group-A standings in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy.

Blending flair and class in equal measure, Ajinkya Rahane flicked, cut and pulled on his way to a 26-ball fifty, making mincemeat of a 168-run target, which wasn’t large enough to hold his third T20 ton.

Rahane had Sarfaraz Khan and Angkrish Raghuvanshi for company, and the younger duo didn’t let the intensity drop.

After Mumbai elected to field, captain Shardul Thakur set the tone with two maiden overs and a wicket in the PowerPlay.

However, it wasn’t as clinical an end, with all-rounders Sairaj Patil and Suryansh Shedge conceding 39 runs in the last two overs.

Earlier, it was an all too familiar batting collapse from Kerala, which could only muster 101 against Assam in the absence of Sanju Samson.

But Kerala’s bowlers didn’t go down without a fight, as Assam huffed and puffed to a five-wicket win. The pace troika of K.M. Asif, M.D. Nidheesh and Sharafuddeen put the shackles on Assam in the PowerPlay, Akhil Scaria was miserly through the middle overs with his cutters, and the quicks returned at the death to almost make a fist of it.

Andhra’s batters, too, couldn’t hold a candle to the bowlers against Vidarbha. Satyanarayana Raju and Tripurana Vijay’s incisions left Vidarbha three down inside seven overs before Aman Mokhade and Akshay Wadkar stabilised the innings. With Wadkar and Harsh Dubey threatening to tee off in the last four overs, Raju mixed his pace and lengths and slipped in the odd yorker to put a squeeze on Vidarbha, which lost its last four wickets for 14 runs.

But Andhra had its task cut out when Umesh Yadav bowled an inspired opening spell in the PowerPlay, removing K.S. Bharat off the first ball before castling Shaik Rasheed. The big-hitting Avinash Pyla and captain Ricky Bhui’s 57-run partnership for the fifth wicket fanned Andhra’s hopes, leaving 55 runs to get in the last five overs, but their dismissals in successive overs extinguished them.

The scores:Vidarbha 154/8 in 20 overs (Aman Mokhade 50, Akshay Wadkar 41, Satyanarayana Raju 4/26) beat Andhra 135/9 in 20 overs (Avinash Pyla 44, Yash Thakur 4/22). Toss: Andhra.

Kerala 101 in 19.4 overs (Sadak Hussain 4/19) lost to Assam 105/5 in 18.5 overs (Pradyun Saikia 41 n.o.). Toss: Assam.

Railways 170 in 20 overs (Suraj Ahuja 47, Navneet Virk 30) lost to Chhattisgarh 171/5 in 19.1 overs (Amandeep Khare 78 n.o., Sanjeet Desai 36). Toss: Chhattisgarh.

Odisha 167/7 in 20 overs (Sandeep Pattanaik 31, Suryansh Shedge 3/46) lost to Mumbai 168/1 in 16 overs (Ajinkya Rahane 95 n.o., Angkrish Raghuvanshi 38 n.o.). Toss: Mumbai.