Suresh Raina, spinners guide Uttar Pradesh to title

Uttar Pradesh lifted their maiden title after outclassing twice champions Baroda by 38 runs in the final of the Syed Mushtaq Ali Twenty20 domestic tournament at Wankhede Stadium here on Wednesday. The Suresh Raina-led side recorded their ninth win on the trot in the tournament.

Raina scored an unbeaten 37-ball 47 to power Uttar Pradesh to 163/7 before restricting Baroda to 125/7 in 20 overs.

Earlier, Prashant Gupta scored 49 (41 balls) with help of five boundaries and a six. Gupta was dropped in Munaf Patel’s first over by wicket-keeper Pinal Shah on five and later survived again on (17) of Munaf (0/21) when he was caught of a no-ball in what could have been the last ball of powerplay. Gupta and Samarth Singh (19) went on to add 37 runs for the opening wicket.

Samarth chopped a short of a length delivery from Hardik Pandya (1/26 in 3 overs) on to the stumps after hitting a six. Raina build his innings patiently and hit his first six of off-spinner Soaeb Tai (1/31) in the 12th over. Bharghav Bhatt (2/13 in 2 overs) struck twice in the 13th over to remove Gupta and Eklavya Dwivedi (0).

Piyush Chawla (17) and Umang Sharma (12) came up with brief cameos. Raina was content on holding the one end and didn’t look at his aggressive best before finishing the innings with a massive six off Irfan Pathan.

Scores: Uttar Pradesh 163/7 in 20 overs (Prashant Gupta 49, Suresh Raina 47*, Bharghav Bhatt 2/13) bt Baroda 125/7 (Soaeb Tai 26*, Rajpoot 3/30, yadav 2/12, Mishra 2/33)