He had to wait for 21 innings for his 15th five-wicket haul in First Class cricket. But Shams Mulani earned his second fifer in as many days to make it a memorable match for himself and Mumbai to help the defending champion pocket a bonus point against Odisha in a Ranji Trophy Elite Group A game.
Riding on Mulani’s (5/71) star act, Mumbai picked the remaining five Odisha wickets in 119 minutes on Sunday morning at the Sharad Pawar Cricket Academy ground. The bonus point – thanks to its margin of an innings and 103 runs – will come in handy for Mumbai after a topsy-turvy start to the season.
The writing was clear on the wall at the start of play on the fourth day but Odisha’s last five wickets added 88 runs before handing Mumbai the victory. More than half of those came from Kartik Biswal’s (45 n.o., 77b, 5x4) blade.
Biswal took guard at the start of the day’s play and played both the spinners – Mulani and offspinner Himanshu Singh – on merit. While his footwork was impressive against spin, he drove Royston Dias during the left-arm pacer’s three-over spell.
Mulani, after replacing Shardul Thakur in the fifth over of the day’s play, struck off his first ball, getting Aashirwad Swain (51, 115b, 3x4) – who had raised his bat an over earlier for a well-made fifty – lbw.
With the set batter dismissed early on, Mumbai’s spin duo – bowling 25.5 of the 30.5 overs in the morning – had to be patient to draw mistakes from the batters. Mulani’s double strike in four balls in the 19th over of the morning gave him his 10th scalp of the match in the form of Harshit Rathod (caught behind) and second fifer of the game (Suryakant Pradhan edging it to Shreyas Iyer at gully).
With Biswal playing freely and last-man Sunil Roul hanging on, the duo frustrated the host for 49 minutes before Singh sneaked through Roul’s defence.
The scoreboard
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