Irani Cup | Spinners rule the roost as Mumbai tightens its noose around RoI

The beauty of a five-day cricket match between two quality sides was on full display.

After being made to toil for the first three days, the spin twins from each of the teams made optimum use of a wearing surface at the Bharat Ratna Shree Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium to ensure that the last day’s play of the Irani Cup game between Ranji Trophy champion Mumbai and Rest of India will be far from being a formality.

Twelve wickets fell on Friday, the penultimate day of the game – two less than the combined tally over the first three days – with the spinners snaring 11 of them (the other was a run-out).

With a solid lead of 274 runs, including the 121-run advantage it gained in the first essay, Mumbai appears to be the team in control.

With uneven bounce and vicious turn for an odd ball being a regular phenomenon on a track with multiple roughs, Prithvi Shaw’s aggressive fifty (76, 105b, 8×4, 1×6) ensured Mumbai continued to take the game away from RoI.

But a change of angle to around-the-wicket worked wonders for Saransh Jain, the offie, who bowled a dream ball that held its line and crashed into off-stump. Two balls later, Shams Mulani was cleaned up after shouldering the arms.

RoI will hope to wipe out Mumbai early on the fifth morning and let its batters go for the kill with a “nothing-to-lose” mindset. 

The RoI tweaker can take a cue from the manner in which Mumbai folded up the RoI innings in no time after Abhimanyu Easwaran and Dhruv Jurel started the morning off on a solid note. The duo batted without any hassle, even when Mohit Avasthi and Shardul Thakur shared the new ball.

With less than half an hour for the lunch break, both the batters got close to their personal milestones. While Jurel – whose drives were a treat to watch – had raced into the 90s, Abhimanyu had entered the 190s. Mulani changed the angle and came over the wicket and was rewarded immediately with Jurel’s sweep resulting in a bottom edge to wicketkeeper Hardik Tamore.

In his next over, Mulani continued to bowl in the rough and Abhimanyu top-edged a sweep for Kotian to rush in from short fine-leg to complete the catch. Kotian then wiped the tail off as RoI lost its last six wickets for just 23 runs.

The scores:

Mumbai – 1st innings: 537.

Rest of India – 1st innings

Ruturaj Gaikwad c Shaw b Juned 9, Abhimanyu Easwaran c Kotian b Mulani 191, B. Sai Sudharsan lbw b Kotian 32, Devdutt Padikkal c Tamore b Avasthi 16, Ishan Kishan c Tamore b Avasthi 38, Dhruv Jurel c Tamore b Mulani 93, Manav Suthar b Mulani 6, Saransh Jain (not out) 9, Yash Dayal (run out) 6, M. Prasidh Krishna c Sarfaraz b Kotian 0, Mukesh Kumar c & b Kotian 0; Extras (lb-9, nb-7): 16; Total (in 110 overs): 416.

Fall of wickets: 1-40, 2-127, 3-158, 4-228, 5-393, 6-396, 7-405, 8-416, 9-416.

Mumbai bowling: Avasthi 22-1-97-2, Juned 17-0-70-1, Mulani 40-4-122-3, Kotian 27-2-101-3, Shardul 4-0-17-0.

Mumbai – 2nd innings

Prithvi Shaw b Saransh 76, Ayush Mhatre st. Jurel b Saransh 14, Hardik Tamore c Jurel b Suthar 7, Ajinkya Rahane lbw b Suthar 9, Shreyas Iyer b Saransh 8, Sarfaraz Khan (batting) 9, Shams Mulani b Saransh 0, Tanush Kotian (batting) 20; Extras (b-4, lb-2, nb-2, w-2) 10; Total (for six wkts. in 40 overs): 153.

Fall of wickets: 1-52, 2-85, 3-106, 4-115, 5-125, 6-125.

Rest of India bowling: Mukesh 3-0-25-0, Prasidh 2-0-15-0, Saransh 18-3-67-4, Suthar 17-1-40-2.