Uttar Pradesh clinched their maiden Mushtaq Ali T20 Trophy with a thumping 38-run win over two- time champions Baroda in the final under lights at the Wankhede Stadium here on Wednesday night.
Displaying all-round display UP pulled out all stops - even overcoming the loss of the toss, to put it across the champions of 2011-12 and 2013-14 and win the summit clash in front of a crowd 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 in this city.
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 just failed to get going full throttle, especially against the double spin attack of Chinaman bowler Kuldeep Yadav (2 for 12) and orthodox leg spinner Piyush Chawla (0 for 16).
Yadav’s dismissal of Baroda’s most successful batsman of the tournament, the Australia-bound 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 3 for 30. Fellow-medium pacer Amit Mishra grabbed 2 for 33.
Yusuf Pathan, known for his big-hitting prowess, flopped miserably 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. 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.
Brief Scores
Uttar Pradesh: 163/7 (Prashanth 49, Raina 47*; Bhargav 2/13) beat Baroda: 125 for 7 (Tai not out 26; Ankit 3/30, Yadav 2/16).