UP in sight of first final berth as Mumbai lose their way

Semantics apart, the equation for UP reads 175 runs required for a win with nine wickets and all of the two days left, after Mumbai’s batsmen set them a target of 214 runs after their second essay.

The hosts ran into early trouble on Sunday, with UP seamer Ashish Winston Zaidi putting them in annoyingly familiar environs, as the Mumbai batsmen took an uneasy lunch in the dressing room at 87-4.

Left to the older guard, Amol Muzumdar and Ramesh Powar, stood up to the challenge posed by UP’s rampaging medium pacers as the battle-hardened duo put on 119 for the fifth-wicket. Muzumdar, who has tallied 672 runs to emerge with the season’s highest aggregate, eventually fell 14 short of recording his third hundred this season.

Uttar Pradesh, eager to avoid the early-morning demons that the wicket throws up, had cancelled out 39 from the target quickly, with 30 runs coming from hits to the fence and one over it. Praveen Kumar, promoted to open was lost in the riposte, but Md Kaif (9 n.o) and Shivkant Shukla (12 n.o.) played out the day. Playing catch up for all three days now, Mumbai is looking for a twist in the tale and some prodigious turn.

Brief scores: Mumbai 199 and 264 (Muzumdar 86, Samant 64,R Powar 41, Zaidi 4-62, P Kumar 3-68) vs Uttar Pradesh 250 and 39 for 1