Mighty Mumbai make shock exit

Mumbai, Jan. 15: Domestic giants Mumbai crashed out of the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy after suffering their third straight defeat — this time by eight wickets against Haryana in an Elite E Group league game — here on Friday.

The loss meant Mumbai’s campaign is over, although they still have two more games left in hand.

As per the format of the tournament, the top ranked teams from each group (six groups in total) will qualify for the knockout stage, along with the next two teams in Elite Groups A to E with the most points.

So even if Mumbai win their last two games, they will only have eight points which will not be enough to make it to the knockouts from Elite Group E as there are two other teams already with 12 points apart from current tabletoppers Kerala.

Opting to bat at the BKC ground, Mumbai was bundled out for a meagre 143 with seasoned off-spinner Jayant Yadav (4/22) and right-arm medium pacer Arun Chaprana (3/22) doing bulk of the damage.

For Mumbai, barring young opener Yashasvi Jaiswal (35), the entire toporder faltered.

Haryana then rode on Himanshu Rana’s blazing unbeaten 75 off 53 balls to chase down the target without much fuss, despite being down 2 for 27 at one stage.

In Chennai, Bihar defeated Meghalaya by six wickets for their third straight win in the Plate group.

Sent in to bat, the Meghalaya batsmen found the going tough against some tight bowling and could manage just 82 for 9 in 20 overs.

Chasing the total, Bihar lost opener Mangal Mahrour (8) in the fifth over but fellow opener Shasheem Rathour (33) and Sakibul Gani (31 not out) batted well to see the team home.

In other matches, Chandigarh outplayed Mizoram by 89 runs while there were wins for Manipur and Nagaland.

Bihar is on top of the Plate group with 12 points from three matches followed by Chandigarh and Nagaland with 10 each.

BRIEF SCORES Mumbai 143 (Atharva Ankolekar 37, Yashasvi Jaiswal 35; Jayant Yadav 4/22; Arun Chaprana 3/22) lost to Haryana 144/2 (Himanshu Rana 75 n.o., Shivam Chauhan 43 n.o.; Arjun Tendulkar 1/34).

Delhi 212/4 (Shikhar Dhawan 77; Lalit Yadav 52 n.o.; S. Sreesanth 2/46) lost to Kerala 218/4 (Robin Uthappa 91, Vishnu Vinod 71 n.o.; Lalit Yadav 1/33).