Uttar Pradesh clinched their maiden Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 Trophy with a thumping 38-run win over two-time champions Baroda in the final at the Wankhede Stadium here tonight.
Displaying all-round performance, UP pulled out all stops to beat the two-time champions in front of 5000 spectators.
This was UP’s ninth straight win in the tournament, including five in the preliminary league phase and three more in the super league stage held here.
UP built their innings around opener Prashanth Gupta’s 49 in 41 balls and captain Suresh Raina’s unbeaten 47 in 37 balls to post a challenging score of 163 for 7.
In reply, Baroda lost half their side for 84 and then were stopped at 125 for 7 wickets. Baroda failed to get going, especially against the spin of Kuldeep Yadav (two for 12) and orthodox leg spinner Piyush Chawla (none for 16).
Yadav’s dismissal of Baroda’s most successful batsman of the tournament, Hardik Pandya (13) and Deepak Hooda (15), tilted the game in UP’s favour.
Medium pacer Ankit Rajpoot picked up an early wicket in his opening spell and then came back to snap up two more to end up with figures of three for 30. Fellow-medium pacer Amit Mishra grabbed two for 33.
Yusuf Pathan, known for his big-hitting prowess, flopped once again by crawling to 14 off 27 balls. Captain Irfan Pathan came in at no. 7 but by that stage the asking rate had climbed beyond 12 per over.
And when he smacked a full toss to the deep fielder, the game was as good as over for Baroda for whom Soaeb Tai top-scored with an unbeaten 26 off 24 balls.
Earlier, put in to bat, Uttar Pradesh benefited from some poor work in the field by Baroda.
Both their top-scoring batsmen – opener Gupta and captain Raina - benefited from let-offs by the Baroda wicket-keeper Pinal Shah.
Shah dropped Gupta on five off Munaf Patel in the second over and then missed an easy stumping chance off Raina when the batsman was on 32 off the bowling of off-spinner Tai in the 16th over.
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