Champs Ghatkopar Jets record hat-trick of Mitsui Shoji title

Defending champions Ghatkopar Jets kept their hold on the Mitsui Shoji T20 crown for the third year in a row when they beat Mumbai Police Cityriders by four wickets in the final, played at floodlight Police Gymkhana ground here on Saturday night. Incidentally, both the teams contested the final for the last three years and Police Cityriders were at the receiving end on each of the occasions.

The final was not a high-scoring contest, but it had plenty of thrilling moments right till the end. First, Police Cityriders, put into bat, lost the plot with their league’s top three rungetters Jay Bista (17), Hardik Tamore (13) and semifinalist centurion Omkar Jadhav (4) fell early. But for aa fighting 54 by Swapnil Pradhan, the rest of the batting crumbled before they were all out for 140.

Chasing 141 for victory, the Jets batsmen, led by Mumbai Ranji opener Prithiv Shaw, kept their nerves to achieve their goal. However, in between there were moments when the tie could have gone in Cityriders’ favour. Jets at one stage were 117 for six when their skipper Ajinky Belose was out in 13.1 overs and they still needed 53 runs in 24 balls. But, the seventh wicket pair of Pushkarj Chavan and Akhtar Shaikh, helped by for the two dropped catches in the deep in the 16th over, took their team home without any further hiccups. Chief guest Srilankan legend Chaminda Vaas extolled the youngsters to work hard to scale further heights in their cricketing career.

Brief scores: Mumbai Police Cityriders 140 all out in 20 overs (Swapnil Pradhan 54 – 7x4, 1x6); Akhat Shaikh 2/38, Pushkaraj Chavan 2/16, Hemant Buchavade 2/22, Ashish More 2/32) lost to Ghatkopar Jets 141 for 6 off 19.2 overs (Prithivi Shaw 26, Gaurav Jadhav 24, Ajinkya Belose 20; Prathmesh Dake 2/29, Rakesh Prabhu 2/24) by 4 wkts. MOMPushkaraj Chavan.