Vinayak Mane's brilliant batting and veteran Nilesh Kulkarni's impressive bowling enabled Mumbai trounce Rajasthan by 72 runs in the final of the Ranji Trophy limited-overs' tournament at the Sawai Mansingh stadium in Jaipur on Wednesday night.
After Rajasthan captain Mohammad Aslam put Mumbai in, the visitors piled up 287 for 6 in 50 overs. In reply, the home team surrendered to some accurate bowling and good fielding and was all out for 215 in 46.1 overs.
For Rajasthan, the 288-run target was a tough task on a slow wicket. They lost opener S Joshi (4) cheaply and kept losing wickets regularly.
Efforts from Rohit Sharma (31), Anshu Jain (25) and Kuldeep Singh (33) were not enough as Rajasthan slumped to 85 for 5 at one stage.
Lower order bat Afroj Khan (53) and Pankaj Singh (23) put up a brave display but that was not enough to overhaul the mammoth Mumbai total.
For Mumbai, Kulkarni (3-15) was most successful bowler. Avishkar Salvi, Usman Malvi and Ramesh Powar took two wickets each.
Earlier, Mane (86) top-scored for the visitors.
Mumbai captain Amol Mazumdar described the victory as team effort.
"Mumbai always start the season as favourites, so pressure is always there, but we learn to handle the pressure," he said.
Chairman of the national selection committee Dilip Vengsarkar was also pleased with Mumbai's performance.
"I thought Mumbai played very well. It is not that Rajasthan has played badly, but Mumbai was better," said Vengsarkar.
Scorecard
Mumbai:
A Rahane c Doru b Pankaj 27
Wasim Jaffer run out (Doru) 21
Ramesh Powar c Jhalani b Afroj 23
Vinayak Mane st Jhalani b Rohit 86
Rohit Sharma c S Gehlot b Kuldeep 48
Amol Mazumdar run out 43
A. Nair not out 27
Extras: (lb-2,nb-4,wd-6) 12
Total: (in 50 overs for 6 wkts) 287
Fall of wickets: 1-36, 2-56, 3-96, 4-180, 5-233, 6-287
Bowling: Pankaj Singh 10-1-63-1, S Gehlot 10-1-54-0, Afroj Khan 7-0-45-1, Anshu Jain 1-0-14-0, M Aslam 10-0-56-0, Kuldeep Singh 10-0-39-1, Rohit Sharma 2-0-14-0.
Rajasthan:
S Joshi c Samant b Salvi 4
Rohit Sharma c Powar b Kulkarni 31
Anshu Jain b Kulkarni 25
Rajesh Bishnoi c Samant b Powar 2
Nikhil Doru run-out 6
Kuldeep Singh c (sub) Iqbal b Powar 33
Afroj Khan c (sub)Indulkar b Malvi 54
R Jhalani b Kulkarni 14
Pankaj Singh c Mazumdar b Salvi 23
M Aslam b Salvi 5
S Gehlot not out 0
Extras: (b-4, lb-2, wd-12) 18
Total: (46.1 overs) 215
Fall of wickets: 1-5, 2-59, 3-62, 4-70, 5-85, 6-145, 7-168, 8-200, 9-215, 10-215.
Bowling: A Salvi 8.1-0-41-2, Usman Malvi 10-1-52-2, N Kulkarni 8-0-15-3, R Powar 10-0-53-2, Abhishek Nayar 5-1-25-0, Rohit Sharma 5-0-23-0.
