Triumph Knights back to winning ways

Mumbai North East Triumph Knights registered comfortable seven-wicket win over ARCS Andheri in the T20 Mumbai League at the Wankhede Stadium here on Wednesday night.

ARCS suffered their second collapse in as many days to get bowled out for 116 in 19.1 overs. Riding high on all-rounder Shashank Singh’s half century, Knights chased down the target in the 16th over to improve their net run rate and boost their hopes of playoff qualification.

The Andheri side looked good in the first half of their innings, before losing the way against some very tidy spin bowling.

Openers Tanmay Mishra and Subramnian Doraiswamy took ARCS to 36 in 4.5 overs. They were doing well at the half way mark with 76/2 on the board but a mini collapse began, as the Iqbal Abdulla-led unit lost their next five wickets for just 12 runs in 3.4 overs. Left-arm spinner Vinayak Bhoir and off-spinner Kalpesh Sawant picked up two wickets each in that spell of less than four overs, completely paralysing the ARCS’ batting.

Apart from the openers, only Abdulla managed to get into double figures. It was in fact Abdulla’s run-a-ball 27 that enabled them to get close to the 120-run mark. Doraiswamy top scored for the Arcs with an aggressive 49 (37 balls, 8 fours).

Knights’ skipper Suryakumar Yadav read the conditions well and used his four spinners effectively. Bhoir (3-14) and Sawant (2-22) were deceptive, while Valsangkar (1-28) and Aditya Dhumal (1-23) were very tough to take runs off.

Chasing a relatively small target, once the openers took Knights to 70, there was very little doubt as to which way the contest was headed. Shashank  batted well to score 63 (50 balls, five fours, two sixes) as the Knights crossed the finish line with seven wickets and 27 balls to spare.