Mumbai beat Delhi, lift third Vijay Hazare title
BENGALURU: Aditya Tare struck a fluent half-century as Mumbai beat Delhi by four wickets to win their third Vijay Hazare title at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium here on Saturday.
Mumbai last won the trophy in 2006-07 when they defeated Rajasthan.
Mumbai opted to bowl and pacers Shivam Dubey (3/29) and Dhawal Kulkarni (3/30) combined to bowl out Delhi for a paltry 177 in 45.4 overs.
Delhi began their innings on a bad note with Mumbai pacers Kulkarni and Tushar Deshpande exploiting the moist conditions.
Deshpande, Dubey and Kulkarni picked up eight wickets between them to rattle Delhi’s batting line-up.
Captain Gautam Gambhir, who was in good form in the league stages, got out for one in second over of the innings. Soon, opener Unmukt Chand (13) and no 3 batsman Manan Sharma (5) also went cheaply
SHAKY START
Chasing 178, Mumbai lost Prithvi Shaw (8) on the third ball of the innings after he smashed two consecutive boundaries off Navdeep Saini.
Ajinkya Rahane (10), captain Shreyas Iyer (7) and Suryakumar Yadav (4) all departed cheaply to Saini (3/53) and Kulwant Khejrolia, leaving Mumbai in trouble at 40/4 in 7.4 overs.
Later, Tare starred with an 89-ball 71 that included 13 boundaries and a six and in the company of Siddesh Lad (48) stitched a 105-run partnership for the fifth wicket to seal the deal for Mumbai with 15 overs to spare.
Tare had his heart in his mouth in the 19th over when he survived a caught behind deci-
sion. Repeated TV replays showed the ball had bounced before nestling in Delhi wicketkeeper Unmukt Chand’s gloves.
Tare eventually fell to leftarm spinner Manan Sharma, trapped in front of the wicket in the 31st over but by then he had already taken Mumbai within sniffing distance of win.
Lad’s valiant 48 came off 68 deliveries with four boundaries and two sixes but he fell two short of his half-century, caught by Dhruv Shorey off Lalit Yadav with Mumbai scoreboard reading 176/6.
Tare also survived a run out appeal at the non-striker’s end after the umpires could not come to a conclusion that the straight drive by Lad had grazed the boot of bowler Subodh Bhati and hit the stumps.