West Zone T20: Maharashtra scrape through

The ongoing T20 West Zone League organised by the Maharashtra Cricket Association saw a new twist in the match where Maharashtra who were pitted against rivals Mumbai managed to outplay them by a narrow margin of ten runs to win the match against them on Saturday at the Deccan Gymkhana grounds.

Winning the toss Mumbai decided to field. However all the calculations fell flat as Maharashtra began to plough through the Mumbai bowling making it look very ordinary. Under a lackluster and insipid bowling attack Maharashtra under the able guidance of K Harshad began scoring runs at a fast pace. Harshad belted the bowlers to all parts of the ground,and scored a superb 75 of just 43 balls. His innings was spiced up with 10 fours,and 3 sixes. After Harshad the good work was continued on by Rohit Motwani who also scored a blistering 36 to propel Maharashtra to a well made 177 for the loss of five wickets. Zaheer Khan managed to pick up one wicket for Mumbai.

Mumbai began by playing sensibly. Wasim Jaffer scored 26 for the Mumbai team,but the Maharashtra bowlers were in no mood to let the good work done by their batsmen go undone,and they began to scalp the Mumbai batsmen at regular intervals. Most of the damage being done by Suresh Nath who took three wickets and Ganesh Gaikwad who chipped in with two wickets. Abhishek Raut scored 43 for the visitors and Ankit Chauhan scored 21. But their heroics went in vain as Maharashtra continued to tighten the noose around Mumbai. Finally at the end of their allotted 20 overs Mumbai could muster 167 for the loss of 8 wickets going down to Maharashtra.